Focus

As you quiet yourself for this brief time, be willing to be open to God in whatever way that may take place.

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Read

1 Peter 2:4-10 (NRSV)

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:

“See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very head of the corner,”

and

“A stone that makes them stumble,
and a rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.

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Reflect

The Calico Rock, Arkansas, Cumberland Presbyterian Church worships and studies in a beautiful stone church on Highway 56E. In 1952, under the leadership of Reverend Joe Matlock, the congregation relocated from a two-story frame building in another part of town and built the “prettiest church in town.” Sometime in the 1980s, the people added on, enlarging the facility substantially. The same company just north of Batesville, Arkansas, that had provided the stone in 1952 came forth with the identical kind of material and today one cannot tell the old from the new.

The previous church building was literally built on a rock. Former pastor, Hubert Morrow, wrote a history of the congregation entitled The Church on the Rock. The people here know first-hand of rocks and stones, and have built and are building a church in the spirit of Jesus Christ, “a living stone,” as mentioned in verse 4 of this chapter.

Our faith—your faith, my faith—is built on solid stone, that “living stone,” Jesus Christ our Lord. We may be shaky, feeling uneasy, inadequate, unqualified, weak, and unable to meet the challenges of life. Never fear. Your life is built on the rock, the solid stone, of our Savior Jesus Christ.

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Pray

O God, our weakness joined to your strength can work wonders. Help us to walk faithfully with you. Amen.

Go with God.