“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. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
1 Peter 2: 9-10 [NIV]
Peter also writes that we are a holy nation, Gods special possession.
Holy things are set apart. We are called to be distinct and different through God’s grace. We are called to change; we are called to be made holy by the working of God’s Spirit in our lives. It is this distinctiveness that should show the world a different way. It is part of our witness in a broken world.
But we are not called to selfish individualism; our holiness is as part of a nation, Gods kingdom, which is beyond man made boundaries, part of a “great crowd of witnesses”.
The call on our lives, on the church's life, is to become a holy people, craving the life giving words God has for us, accepted and clothed in grace, giving thanksgiving to God. Loving others and loving God both in word and in deed. The church is called to live out its identity as a community of grace, a light in a dark and needy world.
Father, help us to be a community of grace.
Guy Mowbray
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