Wednesday: Living Stones
Daily Lesson for Wednesday 15th of January 2025
How is it that we, as fallen, sinful beings, can be pleasing to a holy God?
Read Romans 8:1 and Romans 5:8. What do these texts teach about our standing before God?
Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com
God bestows grace on people prior to any human response. Before anything we say or do, God reaches out to us and gives us the opportunity to accept or reject His love. As Romans 5:8 puts it, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (NKJV; compare with Jeremiah 31:3). And we can be reconciled to God and even pleasing in His sight, by faith through the work of our Redeemer.
Read 1 Peter 2:4-6 and compare it with Hebrews 11:6. What does this tell us about how we can be pleasing to God?
Without God’s intervention, fallen people are incapable of bringing anything valuable to God. Yet God, in His grace and mercy, has made a way, through the work of Christ. Specifically, “through Jesus Christ” we may “offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God” (1 Peter 2:5, NKJV). Although “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6, NKJV), by the mediating work of Christ, God will “make” believers “complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:21, NKJV). Those who respond to God by faith are accounted righteous in His sight through the mediation of Christ, whose righteousness alone is acceptable. And those who respond to God’s loving overtures are accounted worthy through Christ’s mediation (Luke 20:35), and He transforms them into His likeness (1 Corinthians 15:51-57, 1 John 3:2). God’s redeeming work is not only for us but in us, as well.
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Why is the idea of Christ mediating for you in heaven so encouraging? |
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A couple of days ago Carmel and I went to Sydney for.a relaxing day out (I have to say that it was excellent value for money. For $2.50 each we got the train ride to and from Sydney, light rail trasnport around the city, a ferry ride to and from Manly Beach) One of the places we visited was Barangaroo - a recent high rise development in the centre of Sydney,
Here we saw these sandstone blocks placed as a breakwater around the foreshore. These blocks of common sandstone had become living rocks harbouring birdlife and plants. Below the water-level it has become a refuge for an endangered species of seahorse. Behind the location where I took this photo are tall city skyscrapers, officeblocks, accomodation, and casinos - a world away from the serensity of the living rocks in the foreshore.
I thought about those living rocks when I read the lesson this morning. Christ is the chief cornerstone, but we are charged with being living rocks in a world that ignores him. And just as these standstone blocks silently support the environment and witness the power and beauty of nature againt a background of indifferent commerce and entertainment, we too must be living rocks founded on the chief cornerstone but bearing testimony of his love in a secular world.