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The life of the children of God
"Since by your obedience to the truth you have purified yourselves so that you can experience the genuine love of brothers, love each other intensely from the heart; for your new birth was not from any perishable seed but from imperishable seed, the living and enduring Word of God. For all humanity is grass, and all its beauty like the wild flower's. As grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord remains for ever. And this Word is the Good News that has been brought to you.
Rid yourselves, then, of all spite, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and carping criticism. Like new-born babies all your longing should be for milk - the unadulterated spiritual milk - which will help you to grow up to salvation, at any rate if you have tasted that the Lord is good.
He is the living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen by God and precious to him; set yourselves close to him so that you, too, may be living stones making a spiritual house as a holy priesthood to offer the spiritual sacrifices made acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. As scripture says: Now I am laying a stone in Zion, a chosen, precious cornerstone and no one who relies on this will be brought to disgrace. To you believers it brings honour. But for unbelievers, it is rather a stone which the builders rejected that became a cornerstone, a stumbling stone, a rock to trip people up. They stumble over it because they do not believe in the Word; it was the fate in store for them.
But you are a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a people to be a personal possession to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were a non-people and now you are the People of God; once you were outside his pity; now you have received pity."
From the first letter of the apostle Peter (1, 22 - 2, 10)
Prayer
Almighty and ever-living God, Prepared by the Spiritual Theology Department
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