Devotion #4: Usable by the Master

David Hudgens

“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:4-5

My father was a person who possessed an aptitude to seemingly accomplish anything. He was the strongest person I have ever known. He was the smartest person I have ever known. He even had an incredible knack for seeing the repurposed potential of otherwise discarded items. One example of this occurred while growing up in our family’s small, light-blue, Detroit bungalow.

At the front of the house, there was a small set of wooden steps leading down from the porch which settled upon a raised concrete footer that served as a final step before descending onto the driveway. Over time, however, this foundational support had eroded into serious disrepair. After noticing this, my dad examined the structure and concluded that a total rebuild, and not simply a spot repair, was necessary to restore the proper integrity of this principle object. Not many days would pass before he came home equipped with what appeared, to me, to be a pile of rubble, a few tools, several bags of concrete mix, and a vision.

Over the course of a weekend, I marveled at my dad as he chiseled, shaped, arranged, and anchored rocky fragments of rejected stone and brick. When finished, he created a beautiful architectural mosaic that would once again support the feet of passengers using the attached staircase.

I was amazed! Materials that were scrapped, tossed out, and abandoned, were now, in the hands of my father, given new purpose and value.

Similarly, within redemptive history, you and I were once cast off. As both victims and willful participants to sin, our species was condemned to live outside of Eden, separated, due to our own rebellion, from the abiding presence of the sovereign King of the universe. Would humanity remain in this state, defiled by sin? Would humanity ever again live within the presence of God?

Ephesians 2:4-5 gives hope, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved.”

In the final moments of Jesus’ crucifixion, God accomplished the restoration of humanity as image bearers and as living temples for His presence. Prior to the advent of the Messiah, it was required that sin be yearly atoned by the blood of animals, and this through a human intermediary, the high priest. It was the high priest who alone was granted the ability to enter into the Most Holy Place, behind the great curtain restricting access to the resided presence of God.

The Most Holy Place, within the Temple, was the earthly dwelling place of the Lord. It was the means and method by which the manifest presence of God would abide with humans. However, this was never to be permanent, rather the Temple and sacrificial laws were a shadow pointing to a future time when the Messiah would come and fulfill all the requirements of the Law in order to restore the communion between God and man.

As Jesus breathed His last breath on the cross, the veil (curtain) between Heaven and Earth, between God and humans, was torn. Access to the Father was won and made permanent. Through faith in Christ, the once hardened, rocky, human heart is now removed and replaced with a heart of flesh and given a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:26). In Christ, the corrupted heart is now purified by the blood of Jesus and is made well for the presence of God to make His home.

In Christ, the Lord has chosen for Himself a people once discarded and left to the derision of guilt and shame, to now be a collection of living stones. These living stones together make up the temple of the Lord Most High. For in His hands, we are reshaped and repurposed now as a mosaic image of the eternal, everlasting God, doing the will of God to bring Him glory forever. Amen!