An Uncommon Honor

So the honor is for you who believe…
(1 Peter 2:7 – ESV)

What makes something holy ground? When God declares it, when He is working in that place. God has declared believers as holy ground (Romans 8:29 / 1 Corinthians 6:17-20). 1 Peter 1:18-19 – We had better consider ourselves as holy ground or we treat the blood of Christ as less than precious. 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8 – if we disregard holiness we disregard God. We need to become holy ground in our lives as individuals, in our families, and in our churches, and also see to it that our communities know where they can go to be set apart.

Where God is acting we cannot treat as common. Common grace is different from saving and sanctifying grace. Going to church, studying the Bible, praying, fellowshipping with other true believers, fasting, worshipping through song, hearing the Word preached, and living the Christian life with increasing submission and sanctification, these things might appear to be common things. However, they only seem like common things to unbelievers, to believers they are valuable and precious, they are special, they are not common. Only saved or about to be saved people can get any true benefit from them, they are holy things.

1 Peter 2:4-10 – This is special not common, but our common heritage as Christians. Look at the words Peter uses to describe the things of God. We dare not treat these things God calls chosen, precious, holy, acceptable, honor, royal, his own possession, excellent, and marvelous, we dare not treat these things as common. If God Himself thinks they are special, we commit a horrible sin to call them common by treating them as routine and not special. Our salvation, our spiritual sacrifices, and our being built together as living stones that proclaim the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, these things are valuable and precious to God.

Every Sunday is a special time. Just because we get to do it every Sunday doesn’t mean we should treat it as run of the mill. It is God in His abundant grace that gives us the opportunity to meet with Him in the context of meeting with other believers to worship Him. It is a glorious, wondrous, marvelous, precious thing, not some take it or leave it thing. That would be profaning it. That would be treating it as common. Perhaps that is all it is to you, common, but if you are truly growing as a Christian you will have a growing appreciation for just how special this all truly is. Worshipping and working together is an opportunity you don’t get when you are by yourself. It isn’t common and if you think it is that is why you don’t get much out of it because you denigrate its importance. Don’t dishonor God when He has so honored you. Don’t treat as common what God has made clean (Acts 10:15).

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©