On a Wednesday in March, my husband Eric and I had the young children’s lesson at church. The passage centered on The Triumphal Entry found in Luke 19. We read straight through the scripture, then Eric led the children into a question and answer session based on the passage. He focused first on verses 30 through 35 which detail Jesus sending His disciples into a village to fetch Him a donkey – specifically, a colt, the foal of a donkey.
“Do any of you have bicycles?” he asked.
“I don’t have a bicycle, I have a bike,” one little girl said.
Eric smiled and nodded.
“What if strangers came to you and took your bike, what would you do?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t want them to take it,” she replied.
“What if they told you, ‘The Lord has need of it’?” he asked.
The little girl scrunched up her face.
Faith is a hard thing sometimes.
God gives us good gifts like bicycles. Or colts. Or the ability to write. And then He expects us to use these gifts to praise Him.
Eric pointed out to the children that the people who owned the colt easily gave it up, perhaps because they were people of faith.
We helped the children turn to the book of Zechariah.
Zechariah 9:9-10 (NKJV)
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem; the battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
People of faith look for the One who has salvation.
People of faith look to the promises of the past and eagerly await their fulfillment in the present.
People of faith give what the Lord requests, and do what the Lord commands.
Later, in that same Luke 19 passage, the multitude cries out, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!” (v. 38a)
The Pharisees want them to quiet down, but Jesus says, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” (v. 40).
But why did the multitude cry out for this man whom people said was simply a prophet from Nazareth?
Because this Jesus was the man who raised the four-day-dead. (John 11:17-44; John 12:17-18).
This man was the one who had the power of life.
It is impossible to witness great things and keep it to ourselves.
It is time for the stones to cry out.
That’s your cue, writer.
“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 (NKJV)
Back when my parents first built their house on my grandparent’s farm, Momma wanted a path of stones to the front door and a rock garden around a beautiful dogwood tree. She traipsed through the fields and gathered all the rocks she could find. Then, she carefully fitted them together, turning each one this way and that way, sometimes breaking them in strategic places until they fit just right to accomplish her purpose for them.
That’s the implication in 1 Peter 2:5. Living stones. Not just any old rocks, but stones that are shaped and ready for their perfect placement.
That placement “for spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God.”
A sacrifice. Something we give up. Something that costs us. Something acceptable to God.
“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.”
Romans 12:1 (NKJV)
“Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice to praise to God, that is the fruit of your lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”
Hebrews 13:15-16 (NKJV)
Dearest writer — you living stone, shaped by God, for God — the Lord has need of what He’s given you.
Ready your pen for a sacrifice of praise. Be stones that write.
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