Day 7: Coming Clean

“As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

1 Peter 2:4-5, 9

I have been thinking through yesterday’s post about labels. As much as I would love to say that I woke up renewed, refreshed and label free, I know better. I know that it is a process with no set timeline. It is something that I recognize I will have to make an intentional effort with in all areas of my life. It will affect the way I make decisions, how I speak to my kids, my relationship with my husband and even my relationships with others.

 

I have been reading Unglued: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions, by Lysa TerKeurst. I have been reminded of 2 men who were labeled by themselves and others and yet God chose to use them and pull them out of the darkness and into the light.

Saul who once persecuted Christians was renamed Paul and wrote much of the New Testament. Darkness to light. Peter denied Jesus 3 different times and later led 3000 people to dedicate their lives to Jesus and be baptized in one day. Darkness to light.

 

Just like a masterpiece sculpture takes time…days…weeks…years to complete as the artist slowly chisels away at the rock, we too need time to be chiseled, perfected, and refined.

 

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,

which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Ephesians 2:10

In an excerpt from Unglued, the author says, “Paul was God’s workmanship. Peter was God’s workmanship. We are God’s workmanship! God is chiseling us, making us new, releasing us from our hard places – those places that make us feel so stinkin’ defeated – so we can do good works. Works God has prepared for us, which means He knows best how to prepare in us the character we need to fulfill our calling. Oh that we might hear the purposeful clink of the Master’s chisel and call it grace.”

 

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith –

and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

Ephesians 2:8

 

Kelly

xoxo

Day 7 Distance: 2 Miles