I Peter
2:1-3 (NKJV) Therefore, laying aside all malice, all
deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of
the word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if
indeed you have tasted that the Lord is
gracious.
I Peter
2:1-9 (NIV) 4 As you come to him, the
living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being
built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a
stone in Zion, a chosen and precious
cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.” 7 Now to you who believe, this stone is
precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”8 and, “A stone that causes people to
stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They
stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined
for. 9 But you are a chosen
people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you
may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his
wonderful light.
It is important that what we believe about ourselves fit
the reality of who we really are. Throughout the New Testament there is a
repeated refrain of “remember who you are in Christ.” Peter has some pretty
positive things to say to us about who we are. If you are into positive
self-esteem it does not get much better than this, except that our worth, our
value is a gift rooted in the truth of God and in the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus. Peter speaks of our worth in Christ because he found his
own worth in Christ. He had gone from a phony sense of self worth based on the
belief that he was strong and able and capable of handling anything, to the
recognition of how fickle and weak he could be, to the firm foundation of value
he found in Christ’s honest commitment to him.
Our self worth is a calling. And that means making some
adjustments in our lives to bring our thinking, our feeling, and our behavior
in line with the truth given to us in Christ. If that call is to get into our
soul, then we will have to do some letting go - laying
aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking. Malice means scheming to get ahead. Guile is pretending
to be good. Hypocrisy is pretending to be something we are not. Envy is the
petty attitude toward those we think are better off than we are. Slander is
putting people down with politeness. We have to let go of the self-deceit that we
have about our own worth.
We do not simply put aside deceit, we also feed on the
truth, rooted in the Word of God from. Jesus is the cornerstone and He is also
a stumbling stone, Peter tells us. He is a stumbling block for those who do not
believe and a building block for those who do. We find the truth about
ourselves in Him or we stumble by believing the messages that our society
gives. That may sound narrow minded to some of us, and it is. The virtue of
narrow mindedness is when we focus on listening and hearing the truth about
ourselves from Christ. It is not a narrow mindedness of superiority. It is a
narrow mindedness of hope and confidence in Christ.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 5, 1996
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)
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