You Have Been Born Again

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”

And this is the word that was preached to you.

1 Peter 1:22-25

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

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.

1 Perter 2:1-5

Housecleaning gives us a real chance to cleanup. We can also make a clean sweep or malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk.

Our new lives in Christ gives us a chance to make a joyful confession of our new lives in Christ. Peter urged the people of his day to throw away destructive habits.

When our walk with the Lord feels cluttered and our love for others feels strained, this shouldn’t cause us to question our salvation. We don’t change our lives to be saved, but because we are.

As real as our new life in Christ is, bad habits learned do not disappear overnight. So, on a daily basis, we need to “clean house,” throwing away all that prevents us from fully loving others and growing. Then, in that new, clean space, we can experience the wonder of being freshly built by Christ’s power and life.

Every day we can reject destructive habits and experience new life in Jesus.

Our Daily Bread – July 1, 2017