MONDAY September 4th
1 Peter 2:6-8
‘For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” So the honour is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.”’
As we return again today with our devotions, I want to take from these verses ‘“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
These verses tell us that the One who is the stone, cornerstone comes from God, when the baby Jesus was placed in the manger on the night of his birth, God was placing in Zion a cornerstone! Peter also tells us that the cornerstone was chosen and precious, this tells us that he was the one that God had chosen to send, God has not chosen and sent anyone else, and he is precious! The words of the little chorus comes to mind, ‘Precious to me, precious to me, Jesus my Saviour, is precious to me’, well, he is not only precious to each one of us who have come to believe on him, he was and is precious to God, he is his eternal Son.
Peter continues ‘whoever believes in him will not be put to shame’, these are incredibly comforting words, because we can know, that once we have come to believe on Jesus, and our sin is dealt with, our shame is also taken away, we have been clothed in robes of righteousness, his righteousness is imputed to us. And although we will still have to stand before God and give an account of what we have done as his children, it will not be to condemn us, but it will be all about reward, even then we will never be shamed, because we will be eternally found in Christ.
So, if you are in Christ today rejoice that you have come into a living relationship with the One who is the cornerstone, the One who is precious and has become precious to us. But these verses also contain some information which is sad, for it tells us that on the one hand the stone has become the means of blessing for those who believe, on the other hand for those who fail to believe he is a stumbling stone, not that Christ as the stone causes people to stumble, but their unbelief causes them to stumble. Whereas we see the name of this stone, Jesus, to be a precious name, to unbelievers it causes offence.
Remember the little song we sometimes sing with the children, ‘Whose side are you leaning on’ I will adapt it to fit these verses, which side of the stone are you to be found, are you leaning upon and standing upon him as a sure and solid foundation for your life, or are stumbling over him because you have not yet come to realise how precious Jesus really is and can be to you.
It is only those who believe on him who will not be put to shame, therefore if you fail to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, one day you will stand before God, ashamed firstly because you will still be in your sin and secondly because you will have rejected the One who he sent into this world, yes in these verses sent as a stone but it also means sent to be Saviour and thirdly ashamed because God will say to you ‘Depart from me for I never knew you’.
Today, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.