FRIDAY August 25th
1 Peter 2:9
‘ . . .that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.’
In the second part of verse 9 Peter tells us why we have become the people of God, so ‘that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
Immediately that I read these words and consider my being ‘in Christ’ and of being God’s possession, I have to ask myself, and you need to ask yourself ‘is my life proclaiming the excellencies of God, for he has called me out of darkness and into his marvellous light?
I have often said that sometimes we need to stop and consider exactly what has taken place, remembering the great cost as Peter has already reminded us in the first chapter, of the precious blood of Christ to bring us out of darkness. We were engulfed in darkness, gross darkness, utter darkness and God has brought us into his marvellous light (wonderful NIV).
Let me illustrate it this way, imagine being in the most darkest and dank, filthy and smelliest place you could find on earth and being chained to a post, unable to get out, see light and enjoy fresh air. Someone comes and sets you free, the first think you are going to do after saying thank you to them is to say to yourself, I’m never going back in there again! The kingdom of darkness is far worse than this, and Christ came and set us free! He released us, surely we should also make the same decision ‘I’m never going back to that again’. Instead we should be doing all we can to proclaim the excellencies of God, we should be determined to live in every way possible to bring praise and glory to God, to honour him in who we are in him and because of him in all that we do.
Peter is making reference again to the Old Testament where it is said of Israel ‘ . . the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise’ (Isaiah 43:21) in an earlier verse it says ‘Behold, I am doing a new thing’ (v19) and through the Cross of Christ, God has done and is still doing another new thing, he has formed a new people, the Church so that we too may declare his praise.
We need to keep referring back to what Peter has already said, ‘as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct’, if we fail to heed this then we will be dishonouring toward God rather than declaring the excellencies or praise of his name.
I am going to be using some of my annual leave up again next week, so the devotions will return on Monday September 4th.