Watch those conjunctions!

And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests.  — 1 Peter 2:5a

A conjunction, such as ‘and’ ‘but’ or ‘or’ is a word that links or joins other words, phrases, or clauses.

You remember learning about the structure of a sentence from your elementary and middle school grade language arts classes. This said, smile with how 1 Peter 2:5a starts in the NLT version.

And….

And we are living stones. And there’s more. We are a part of God building his spiritual temple.

This is cool. Exciting. Most of all, this is aligning. This verse calls us to who we can be—holy priests.

Tall order? Yes! In fact, most days we could honestly look at what Peter is sharing here and say, “Who, me? A living stone? A holy priest? Um, that’s a no.”

This isn’t a no to God, however. The Great I Am is not done. The Maker of all things possible isn’t writing you off. Instead, this Creator—our Creator—is picking up pieces (sometimes really sharp and nasty pieces) and turning them into potential. Specifically, this is your potential which, in turn, becomes this building God is speaking of, his spiritual temple.

Let God be God. How? Let God do what God does, which is bring hope to hopelessness and joy to what seems like junk—your junk. Watch conjunctions not just in your sentences, but in your life.

Here are examples:

• I know how God loves me, and, with this, I can move up and out of hardships.
• I messed up BIG time but get another try.
• I can flounder in the mess or find the message.

PRAYER: God, help me watch my sentences and my life. Amen.