SUNDAY September 6, 2026

A Holy Habitation

...you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:5

On the premise of Christ being a living stone, Peter also established who we are in Christ––we, too, are living stones. Peter then gives a picture of us as living stones founded upon Christ. We become fashioned into a spiritual house that offers up spiritual sacrifices. What does this mean? We have a privileged union with Jesus Christ. After we were born again of God’s Spirit, our bodies became the Temple of the Living God. Consider these Bible verses to gain a better understanding of what Peter is teaching:

1 Corinthians 3:16: Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

Romans 12:1-2: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

Ephesians 2:19-22: Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

So many Christians fail to understand what it means to become living stones, built up as a spiritual house. It speaks of our spiritual growth as we become constructed together as a spiritual house in which God dwells.

Believers in Christ are also part of God’s holy priesthood. In the Old Testament, priests were chosen from the tribe of Levi and consecrated to serve in the Temple. In the same way our lives are to be consecrated to God. Believers are Christ’s Church, making Him known to the world.

The task of the church is to make the invisible Kingdom visible through faithful Christian living and witness-bearing.
~J. I. Packer~

For more from Raul Ries, please visit SomebodyLovesYou.com!