“We are God’s People and have received His Mercy”

Article for May 3, 2026

John 14:12–14 12“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

Believe in Jesus Christ and believe in the Father who sent to us our Savior.  Do not misunderstand these words for some think God has given them powers that exceeds His own.  Truth be told we cannot do anything without God, and it is His power He welds through us as He decides.  God is smart, He leaves nothing up to us except to believe and He even leads into believing. (John 6:29, Eph. 2:8-9)

The name of God is the will of God not our will and not that we pronounced the words “In the Name of Jesus Christ,” when we pray.  This means if we are to pray in the name of our Lord, in the will of our Lord, we should learn what His will is.  When you know God’s will to put your trust in God.

What is God’s will?  Let’s start with salvation.  It is the will of God that salvation goes out to all people who believe.  It is God’s will that we spread the gospel so that all people may know of the promised salvation that maybe those who listen may believe too.  It is God’s will that we forgive and that we are forgiven.  It is God’s will and want that we who are God’s creation love Him for He is our creator.  And there is more of God’s will that we should learn it.  Find it if you care.

1 Peter 2:2–3 2Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation— 3if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

We are but a baby for a short while in our span of life.  We only drink mother’s milk for a short time as well.  Soon we are weaned from our mother’s milk and start to consume solid food and stay with solid food for most of our life.  How long will one be a baby Christian and how long will you feed them as such?  It is time to consume the solid food that our Lord provides and digest it so that we accumulate the nourishment God has prepared for life eternal.

If you have tasted God and I do not mean the bread and wine or even the body and blood, but the essence of God’s love for all.  God created us in His image that we might imitate His actions in our actions.  Knowing God is tasting the goodness of God, for He is the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink.  God is not a thought but a real entity that lives forever and wants us to live forever with Him, not on our terms but through those precepts God also created for us to live by.  God’s precepts are His law and His gospel.

1 Peter 2:4–5 4As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

See what God has said through Peter.  We are a living stone.  That our temple is built out of stone may to some mean that we are the children of God and this is cast in stone.  God has chosen us and also has chosen us to be precious to Him.  Though mankind and the world rejects you because the world does not want you, God has chosen you and wants you to live in the holy priesthood that Jesus Christ belongs to.

It is not that we must have a physical sacrifice as did the Jews before Jesus was crucified, but that our sacrifices be spiritual.  Our spiritual sacrifice becomes part of our priesthood as we worship our Lord our God.  What is the spiritual sacrifice that we can give?  Would it be to surrender yourself to God, worship Him, and let the Holy Spirit with the word of God grow your belief, faith, and love in God?

1 Peter 2:6–8 6For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 7So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

Do not mistake what is to be destined as a “pre-destination,” as it is that those who chose to disbelieve create their own destination of stumbling into the bottomless pit.  But we believers being stone temples are built and attached to the Cornerstone that is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  And Jesus Christ is precious as He died for our sins and was resurrected for our life eternal.  Now that Jesus was resurrected, His light shines brighter and gives us the sure hope of our resurrection, too.

Know and feel it in your heart that our God has built us as one temple made of many stones to stand in the eternal span of holy eternal life with Him who created us and formed us to be a holy house of His beloved children.  This life eternal is not because we deserve it but because God has clothed us in the righteousness of His Son our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:9–10 9But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Do you see the gospel playing out in the words of our Lord through Peter.  We are a nation not of color but of colors, not of ethnic differences but of ethnic assimilations.  We are all the people chosen to be the children of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to be one holy nation no longer under God but with God.  Not that we become equal to God but that we share in the inheritance of eternal life with Jesus Christ our Lord and our Savior.

  Amen.