Guest Writer Monday...err, Tuesday: Kelli!

It is like Clinique Bonus Days around here at Moop and Saba! You get a complete bonus guest post this week! How awesome is that? Enjoy the encouragement that Kelli is sharing...oh for the grace for us to understand how precious we are in God's sight! When I sometimes grasp my position in Christ, it makes me want to jump for joy, just like Sloan is doing in the above pic!

The Stone that the Builders Rejected

My son has recently taken to collecting rocks. He brings them home in his pockets and stores them in various places around our house. Sometimes he paints or colors them. Other times he names them. Usually though, they are cast aside and forgotten pretty quickly at which point I quietly toss them back outside.

Our church just finished a month’s long series on the book of 1 Peter. When we got to 1 Peter 2:4-12, I thought of Sloan and his precious little stones. He really found them to be so fascinating. He never came home with just any rock. He brought home rocks that were unique, contoured, colored, shiny and so on…To him, these rocks were precious and worthy of finding a home inside his tattered treasure chest.

1 Peter 2:4 – And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

To the Father in heaven, we are precious stones. We are living stones, which is so much more valuable. We are not meant to be trampled or cast aside, but to be washed and held up by the One who gave us life. And in the same vein, Christ also is a living stone. We are made in His image and He too is choice and precious in the sight of God.

Do you ever wonder why we struggle with self esteem? Why we question our worth and our place in this world? Could it be because we don’t see Christ as the living and precious stone that He is and, therefore, do not realize the magnitude of what He did for us on the cross? Could it be because we so often forget that we weren’t an afterthought in God’s creation, but rather that we are the crown jewel of all that He placed on earth? If we would only cling to this promise, would we not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He has set us apart as precious?

1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

I don’t know about you, but when I read those words the magnitude of gratefulness I feel almost takes my breath away. He called us out for a purpose. We are not “stones” that are to sit passively on a shelf – oh no…God created us for a purpose in His great mercy. We are to “proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out.”

So the next time you see a rock, or your child brings in a “treasure” of a rock, remember the living stone, rejected by man but exalted by God. And remember that you too are precious and worthy to be called a treasure.