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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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