God doesn’t merely save you; He places you. In Christ, you’re not a loose rock rolling through life—you’re a living stone being set into something sturdy, holy, and purposeful. Today, consider what it means that God is building a spiritual home and inviting you to serve in it.

Built, Not Self-Made

Most of us default to “I need to get my life together.” But Peter flips the script: you are being built. That means progress is not mainly about willpower; it’s about surrender—letting the Master Builder shape, position, and secure you. You’re not the architect of your faith; you’re the workmanship of God, placed where you can’t always see the full plan.

And you’re not built alone. “And in Him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God in His Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). The “together” is where pride dies and love grows. If you’ve been tempted to drift from the church, remember: isolated stones don’t make a house. Ask God where you’re resisting being fitted—through forgiveness, commitment, or humble service.

Priests on Purpose

Peter says you’re part of a holy priesthood. That’s not a title for spiritual celebrities; it’s your calling in everyday life. Priests draw near to God and represent Him to others—through prayer, truth, compassion, and courage. Your kitchen table, workplace, and neighborhood can become holy ground when you live as someone who belongs to the Lord.

God has made this possible through Jesus, not your performance. Scripture says He “has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and power forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 1:6). So step into today with confidence: you can pray boldly, repent quickly, and speak hope clearly. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood… that you may proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Sacrifices That Please God

If you’re a priest, you bring offerings—but not animals on an altar. You bring yourself. “Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12:1). That means your obedience when no one applauds, your purity when temptation is loud, your patience when you’re tired—these are real offerings.

And don’t underestimate “small” sacrifices. “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name” (Hebrews 13:15). Then Scripture gets wonderfully practical: “And do not neglect to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased” (Hebrews 13:16). Praise, generosity, truth-telling, mercy—these are the incense of a life close to God. The key is staying connected: “I am the vine; you are the branches… apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Lord, thank You for building me into Your spiritual house through Jesus. Make my life an offering that pleases You today—help me obey quickly, love boldly, and serve faithfully. Amen.

Until the full light of God's inspired Word floods down upon the religious landscape, almost everything is obscure and indistinct. The finest minds see things that are not there and fail to see the things that are. This inability to make out the details is a frustrating thing to persons of a strong religious bent and results in a lot of guessing and theological improvising. Such persons demand to know, and though they neglect or reject the holy Scriptures they will know, regardless, in some manner satisfying to themselves.

Bible lovers have been blamed for being excessively dogmatic and it may be that they sometimes are. I do not wish to justify a spirit of cocksureness wherever it may be found, but the certainty of the believer may be understood when it is remembered that it springs from his faith in the Scriptures as the full and true revelation of the mind of God to men. His dogmatism has back of it the strong "thus saith the Lord" of prophet and apostle. My own experience has taught me, however, that the most stubborn dogmatism is found not among those who quote the Bible to support their convictions, but among those who quote no one and claim for their spiritual authority nothing higher than their own opinions.

Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. - Hebrews 12:2

It is finished! - John 19:30

The disciples’ vision of their ascended Lord expresses absolute repose after sore conflict. It is the same thought which is expressed in those solemn Egyptian colossal statues of deified conquerors, elevated to mysterious union with the god, and yet men still, sitting before their temples in perfect stillness, with the mighty hands lying quiet on the restful limbs; with calm, faces out of which toil and passion and change seem to have melted, gazing out with open eyes as over a silent prostrate world. So, with the Cross behind, with all the agony and weariness of the arena, the dust and the blood of the struggle left beneath, He "sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty." The rest of the Christ after His Cross is parallel with, and carries the same meaning as, the rest of God after the Creation. Why do we read "He rested on the seventh day from all His works"? Did the Creative Arm grow weary? Was there toil for the Divine nature in the making of a universe? Doth He not speak and it is done? Is not the calm, effortless forth-putting of His will the cause and the means of Creation? Does any shadow of weariness steal over that life which lives and is not exhausted? Does the bush consume in burning? Surely not. He rested from His works, not because He needed to recuperate strength after action by repose, but because the works were perfect; and in sign and token that His ideal was accomplished, and that no more was needed to be done. And, in like manner, the Christ rests after His Cross, not because He needed repose even after that terrible effort, and was panting after His race, and so had to sit there to recover, but in token that His work was finished and perfected; that all which He had come to do was done; and in token, likewise, that the Father, too, beheld and accepted the finished work. Therefore, the session of Christ at the right hand of God is the proclamation from the Heaven of what He shouted with His last dying breath upon the Cross: "It is finished! " It is the declaration that the world has had all done for it that Heaven can do for it. It is the declaration that all which is needed for the regeneration of humanity has been lodged in the very heart of the race, and that henceforward all that is required is the evolving and the development of the consequences of that perfect work which Christ offered upon the Cross. So, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews contrasts the priests who stood "daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices" which "can never take away sin," with the fact that "this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down at the right hand of God "; testifying thereby that His Cross is the complete, sufficient, perpetual atonement and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. So we have to look back to that past as interpreted by this present, to that Cross as commented upon by this Throne, and to see in it the perfect work which any human soul may grasp, and which all human souls need, for their acceptance and forgiveness.