Praise Brings Light

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

1 Peter 2: 9

 

This is a true statement about everyone who knows God; for a relationship with the Creator involves a total change in all of our core forms of identity and expands our connections and affinities by an unimaginably large factor. As we are in Christ, we are also included in this very select but substantial family that occupies God’s household; thus, we are among a group of people that God has committed to love and to protect despite our lack of worth or our unloveliness.

 

When the Lord possesses a person, He doesn’t just grab us and hold us captive. Rather, He wins us over by showing us that He has a love for us that penetrates to the depths of our need and that His love is the only truly unconditional and unchanging one that exists. As we allow the Lord to possess our hearts and our minds, His Spirit works on them to transform us into people who also understand God’s will and who act out of righteous love. It is a part of our human nature to fight back against God’s possession, to hold on to parts of our old ways of viewing life and of living it, but darkness tends to fill these areas where we hold back.

 

One of the best things that we can do to eliminate these dark corners from our hearts is to express our praise for the Lord. This praiseful practice can to become a daily part of how we live until it is an important part of who we are. Just consider the goodness that Christ brings into your life, read of God’s mercy and grace in His Word, thank Him for the ways that He has touched the lives of those around you, and develop your own thoughts of the ways that God’s presence infuses your world. Then, start to talk with Him about it. As you let God know how much you notice and value who and what He is to you, He will speak these same truths back to your heart in ways that will make them even clearer and more understandable. The best way to fill your day with light is to continually speak praise for God from your heart. As you do this, He will shine the warming light of peace, joy, and freedom onto every step of your path.

 

 

The Nation

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

1 Peter 2: 9

 

Taking pride in the nation of our origin or in the one where we live is something that most people are taught from an early age. We become citizens, and that single word conveys a very wide range of benefits, responsibilities, and affiliations. Sometimes this idea of nation takes on the sort of zeal and boosterism that would normally be reserved for sports teams. We cheer it on, its faults and shortcomings are impossible to see, we support it regardless of its actions, and we are ready to sacrifice all for its causes. Yet, when the nation is being described as holy, it seems that Peter cannot be describing anything that is even remotely similar to the sorts of geopolitical entities that we call nation in our world today.

 

There are no holy nations; not one. Each and every one of them exists to serve its own purposes and to promote its own causes. All of the nations, countries, and states that exist on earth owe and pay their highest allegiance to their foundational documents and to the ruling officials that those documents set over their governance. In no case are God and His Word placed in that position of true primary and ultimate authority. So, Peter must have something in mind other than the nations of his time or the ones that have followed in history when he refers to the men and women who follow Christ as a great nation. I believe that he is saying that God has called all people who know Him to a form of allegiance that is higher and greater than our earthly citizenship or physical residency. In fact, God has called us to live in the light of His truth, love, and mercy so that the light of God’s glory will illuminate the lands where we reside.

 

Our primary loyalty must be to God and to His Christ. The document that frames our rule of life needs to be God’s Word. When that holy document sets out a course of travel through life and the Holy Spirit directs us to follow, we have no righteous choice but to do so. When that course is contrary to the dictates and the mandates of the rulers of our land or to the laws that they enact; we are compelled to speak out, to stand up and be known, and to work to change the unrighteous path that our nation has elected to follow. If change does not follow, we must seek to change the people who are in power and we must work diligently to remove or to modify the unrighteous laws. There is great strength to be found in the multitude of those who God knows as His chosen people. However, we need to recognize our common bond that is found in our blood of Christ kinship. As we stop defending national borders and stand firm in our true nationhood under God, the light of His righteousness will illuminate darkened corners of our world.

 

Holy Calling

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people chosen for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

1 Peter 2: 9

 

Knowing Christ changes everything. He makes us over into people who are truly special, for we are chosen by God. In our acceptance of Christ as Savior and Lord we submit the direction and the outworking of our lives to God’s will and commit to live under the authority of His righteousness. So, when we submit to Christ, God chooses to pour out His grace upon us and adopt us as His beloved children. When this happens our primary citizenship is no longer defined by a nation, state, or city. Our principle occupation is now sacred and no longer secular. Power, position, possessions, and might should no longer drive us; rather, we are to be humbly submitted to service to the King.

 

In Christ we have sacred duties to perform. We serve at the alter in God’s temple. This is demanding duty for this temple is never closed and it is actively seeking new adherents to the faith. As priests who serve Christ our daily activities form an important part of the liturgy of this holy place. For God, rather than establishing a fixed place for His dwelling on earth, has established Himself within each and every one of us who follow Christ. We are that righteous place of worship that starving and desperate people can come to in order to find the peace, restoration, and loving truth that is God’s living word of grace.

 

This service to Christ requires us to open our hands and our hearts to people of all human descriptions without regard for how much discomfort they may cause us to feel. We are granted the great privilege of following Jesus by touching the soiled faces of this world’s people with the cleansing water of Christ’s baptism of light. This is honorable work. It is a holy endeavor that only God’s chosen are empowered to do. This is the calling that Christ lays upon the hearts and the minds of His people.

 

Citizenship

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

! Peter 2: 9

 

This is July 4^th, and in the United Stats we are celebrating the high holy day of our nation. Now listen carefully to me here, I say this with all due respect and sincerity. I am loyal and patriotic and delight in the many great things that this country has accomplished and that it does stand for. Additionally, Peter left us with little doubt about the fact that God directs us to be loyal citizens, to place ourselves under the rule and the authority of our civil governments and their leaders. Yet, I fear that too many people, in this country and in others, get our orientation, thus our priority, all wrong.

 

We start believing that God ordained our specific nation and its system of governance as His answer to the needs of humanity for justice, order, and right living. We grant our highest form of allegiance to that national entity while believing that the answers to all that is amiss in our world are to be found in strict adherence to a constitution and in the power and rule of might of our government, often as prosecuted by the strength of our military. Let’s face it, national identity is easy to grasp, is usually safe to proclaim in our neighborhood, and grants to us a ready means of proclaiming superiority among the peoples of the world.

 

This form of loyalty is legitimate on the one hand, but it is false at a much deeper level. It is legitimate in that God has established our various systems of rule as a means of both maintaining order in a broken and dying world and, through their inherent futility and oppression, of pointing us to Christ as the only legitimate and effectual King. Yet it is dangerously false in that it often leads us into placing our trust and faith in laws and in leaders that are earthly and temporary. Unfortunately this false trust inevitably leads to compromise and to a loss of true righteousness, justice, and love for others. God claims us as His own people, our nationality is found in Christ, and it is founded on the truth of God’s Word. Our mission is the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Its purpose is to bring about the peace that is found only through reconciliation with God.

 

 

Chosen

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

1 Peter 2: 9

 

Our hearts yearn for acceptance and for belonging. We want to be desired and sought after. Yet, people universally struggle with a sense of rejection and with the fear of being unwanted and unlovable. We will often do or say almost anything in order to gain the approval of others. However, one of the problems with this approach to life is that others are doing the same thing; so, no one is being true to themselves or honest with others. We build relationships that are founded on well crafted facades, and we encounter major issues when our true selves are revealed over time.

 

Christ’s way of relating to people is exactly the opposite. He shows us who He is, what He wants from us, what He plans to give to us, and how the relationship will develop. The Lord has always been up front in every aspect of His interaction with people. He also wants to be involved with each of us. God doesn’t use Facebook or any other social networking site to check us out. He doesn’t need to watch us from across a room at a party in order to decide if we are attractive to Him, and He certainly doesn’t need to Google us in order to become aware of our pasts. He is our Creator. Thus, He is responsible for the way that each of us was designed, and He delights in the work that He did.

 

Regardless of what I have done or not done, no matter what I have accomplished, and without regard for my past or my present spiritual state; God promises that He has chosen me to be the recipient of His love, blessing, joy, mercy, and grace. He wants to fill my heart with the brilliance of His redeeming light. He wants to lift me up and embrace me with the warmth of perfect love, and He does empower and equip me to share this love with a desperately lonely world.

 

Praise Brings Light

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

1 Peter 2: 9

 

This is a truth statement about you and about me and about everyone who knows God; for a relationship with the Creator involves a total change in all of our core forms of identity and expands our connections and affinities by an unimaginably large factor. As we are in Christ, we are also included in this very select but substantial family that occupies God’s household; thus, we are among a group of people that God has committed to love and to protect despite our lack of worth or our unloveliness.

 

When the Lord possesses a person, He doesn’t just grab us and hold us captive. Rather, He wins us over by showing us that He has a love for us that penetrates to the depths of our need and that His love is the only truly unconditional and unchanging one that exists. As we allow the Lord to possess our hearts and our minds, His Spirit works on them to transform us into people who also understand God’s will and who act out of righteous love. It is a part of our human nature to fight back against God’s possession, to hold on to parts of our old ways of viewing life and of living it, but darkness tends to fill these areas where we hold back.

 

One of the best things that we can do to eliminate these dark corners from our hearts is to express our praise for the Lord. This needs to become a daily part of how we live until it is an important part of who we are. Consider the goodness that Christ brings into your life, read of God’s mercy and grace in His word, thank Him for the ways that He has touched the lives of those around you, and develop your own thoughts of the ways that God’s presence infuses your world. Then, start to talk with Him about it. As you let God know how much you notice and value who and what He is to you, He will speak these same truths back to your heart in ways that will make them even clearer and more understandable. The best way to fill your day with light is to continually speak praise for God from your heart. As you do this, He will shine the warming light of peace, joy, and freedom onto every step of your path.

 

 

The Nation

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

1 Peter 2: 9

 

Taking pride in the nation of our origin or in the one where we live is something that most people are taught from an early age. We become citizens, and that single word conveys a very wide range of benefits, responsibilities, and affiliations. Sometimes this idea of nation takes on the sort of zeal and boosterism that would normally be reserved for sports teams. We cheer it on, its faults and shortcomings are impossible to see, we support it regardless of its actions, and we are ready to sacrifice all for its causes. Yet, when the nation is being described as holy, it seems that Peter can not be describing anything that is even remotely similar to the sorts of geopolitical entities that we call nation in our world today.

 

There are no holy nations; not one. Each and every one of them exists to serve its own purposes and to promote its own causes. All of the nations, countries, and states that exist on earth owe and pay their highest allegiance to their foundational documents and to the ruling officials that those documents set over their governance. In no case are God and His Word placed in that position of true primary and ultimate authority. So, Peter must have something in mind other than the nations of his time or the ones that have followed in history when he refers to the men and women who follow Christ as a great nation. I believe that he is saying that God has called all people who know Him to a form of allegiance that is higher and greater than our earthly citizenship or physical residency. In fact, God has called us to live in the light of His truth, love, and mercy so that the lands where we reside will be illuminated by the light of God’s glory.

 

Our primary loyalty must be to God and to His Christ. The document that frames our rule of life needs to be God’s Word. When that holy document sets out a course of travel through life and the Holy Spirit directs us to follow, we have no righteous choice but to do so. When that course is contrary to the dictates and the mandates of the rulers of our land or to the laws that they enact; we are compelled to speak out, to stand up and be known, and to work to change the unrighteous path that our nation has elected to follow. If change does not follow, we must seek to change the people who are in power and we must work diligently to remove or to modify the unrighteous laws. There is great strength to be found in the multitude of those who God knows as His chosen people. However, we need to recognize our common bond that is found in our blood of Christ kinship. As we stop defending national borders and stand firm in our true nationhood under God, the light of His righteousness will illuminate darkened corners of our world.