6. I Am a Living Stone Fitted with Others

Much of 1 Peter Chapter 2 is an expansion of “having purified our souls,” and thus fits into the last lesson. In this lesson, I want to focus on only two verses, 5 & 9.

You yourselves as living stones, are being constructed together as a spiritual house into a devoted priesthood, to offer spiritual offerings welcomed by God through Jesus Christ. – You, however, are a chosen offspring and family, a royal priesthood, a devoted ethnic family, a people into His gain and possession, so that you may publicly declare the goodness and virtue of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Peter begins with Solomon’s temple as a metaphor.

Our Earthly Lives. And the temple, when it was being built, was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built (1 Kings 6:7).

I want to emphasize the critical importance to us of giving a full account of our lives inside the presence of God and in the present season of opportunity. As we call every moment we have ever lived as God sharing all with us for the sake of others, so our earthly lives become what we will be forever. A billion years from now, we will find ourselves in a very different circumstance than we know right now. BUT – in that moment, God with us now will become God with us then.

Shaped by God. We are in the quarry. Our present lives, every moment, every circumstance, every interaction with others, is being shaped by the Hand of God to prepare us for two things in this context. One important thing for which we are being shaped by all the hammer blows is that, when we find ourselves together as the dwelling place of God, we will know just how much we FIT one another.

Secondly, we will discover incredible meaning and intention in the shaping of God inside our present season of opportunity, affecting us directly in all future circumstances. As we know God now, so we will know Him forever. When we get to every next moment forever, we will exclaim with joy, “God, You have prepared me for THIS.”

Through the Fire. I must expand on that thought briefly. Most people call their lives on this earth by something not-God, whether by self (Sinatra – I Did It My Way) or by the devil, or by the curse. Every one of these callings is an accusation against God.

But Paul’s gospel asserts that at some point in the future every individual human and angel will call their lives in this present age as having come only out from God through Jesus. And John’s gospel asserts that those who now call every moment of their lives in this age as coming only out from God through Jesus, refusing all accusation raging against their souls even through the Fire, will be the firstfruits of Christ who lead all others into the Salvation of God in the ages to come. Nothing prevents the Fire, whether now or later.

The Entire Gospel. This JS2 page, however, is focused only on the meaning of being fitted together with one another as the revelation of Father at Home.

Let’s list the topics in our two verses. Those topics are (1) living stones, (2) being constructed together, (3) a spiritual house, (4) a devoted priesthood, and (5) offering spiritual offerings welcomed by God through Jesus. They continue with (6) a chosen offspring and family, (7) a royal priesthood, (8) a devoted ethnic family, (9) a people into His gain and possession, (10) publicly declaring the goodness and virtue of God, (11) the One who called you, and (12) out from darkness into His marvelous light.”

We have almost the entire Gospel in these two verses.

Our Page. There is clearly way too much for a single JS2 page, so we must make choices. We will begin with speaking Christ in order to have the full picture before making our selections. Peter’s letter is filled with things that seem to separate us from union with Christ, but when we bring those things into the Jesus Secret, they become our lives and our joy.

I want to close this page with an “Ask and Believe” box, for we must always connect directly with God through His Word. That leaves us, then, with just three boxes, three topics from our list of twelve. Those three will be “Living Stones,” “Fitted Together,” and “Spiritual Offerings.” Spiritual offerings are then the topic of the remainder of our study of Peter.

Speaking Christ. I have already purified my soul by receiving all that Jesus is as every Word fulfilled. The Lord Jesus is good and well-fitted to me; I connect with Him as living stones together. Jesus and I are made for each other, His strength fills my weakness to perfection.
God has chosen me and values me as a living stone in the construction of His dwelling place. As a living stone, I am being shaped to fit together perfectly with my brothers and sisters, in the same way that Jesus and I fit together. My brethren and I fitted together are a spiritual house; we are a devoted priesthood. We together through Jesus offer spiritual offerings welcomed by God. We together are a chosen family; we together are a royal priesthood, devoted to God. As a people, we are the gain and possession of Jesus. We belong utterly to God.

I publicly declare the goodness and virtue of Jesus for I am called into His marvelous light. I am a stranger to this world; I have no part in the present arrangement of humans and demons. I behave honorably among all. People see my good actions and glorify God because of them.

What I Want. We cannot discuss our topic in the abstract or from afar. Being “fitted together” with other “living stones,” that is, with other people as the dwelling place of God, is penetratingly personal.

I am reading a book that might become one of the most influential books in my life, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. The story line is requiring me to look straight at the deepest desire and reason of my dream. Here is my dream – I want to belong. More than that, having walked with God for sixty years through the Fire inside the Church, I KNOW the outline and shape of what would be belonging for me. – “I will know God, and I will walk with a people who know God.”

Our Problem. I want to articulate exactly what it would mean for me to “belong.” In doing so, I will list qualities in three categories, “For Me,” “With Others,” and “For God.” Another way to call these three categories would be – “Living Stones,” “Fitted Together,” and “Spiritual Offerings.” However, I want to keep this immediately personal first, so that it will be real.

But what does it mean to belong? It means that I must be received by others. But how can I be received by others except I first become real? And how could being received by others become anything other than “group-think” except God be known as Love among us? Here’s the problem – How could I become real except I be received by others? Or except we know God together?

Wanting the Impossible. You see how it is that each of these three needs the other two first before it can become what it is. I must become a living stone before I can be fitted with others, and God has to fill our togetherness before I can become a living stone or be fitted together. I just want the impossible, that’s all.

I have done well six times in my life. Each of those six times was when I was working together with another man. Each of those six men, Jimmy Barkley, Abel Ramirez, Don Howat, Amos Stoltzfus, Rick Annett, and Peter Douglas, shared very similar qualities in giving me a FULL place with them, and each were about the same age, some 8-10 years older than me. I was doing really well in the flow of anointing for the last five years, but now the wind seems to have left my sails.

Old Men and Dreams. I can tell you exactly why I did well from the early spring of 2020 to the end of 2024. It was because Peter Douglas received me, and gave me a place with him, both in my person and in the gift God has given me. Inside of that place of belonging that Peter continuously extended to me, I thrived in my gift. Without such a precious friend giving me place, I am flailing with “nothing” beneath. That doesn’t mean I will stop going on in writing and in believing God, for I walk through faith, even when hope seems small.

Enter Paulo Coelho and his little book. Let me paraphrase. – “The saddest thing in the human experience is when old men abandon the dream of their youth.” And I am pierced through.

Inside Christian Community. And what was the dream of my youth? – To belong.

Okay, I must bring myself in hand. I will belong only inside a Christian Community. Let me build this community out from myself.

To have known six such men as I have known, from age 18 to age 68, is a gift and a privilege from God few are given. To expect a seventh such man to enter my life in full, that I might thrive in my gift once more, would be to expect God. It took differing amounts of time for such relationships to develop and only in the right conditions. With Amos, we knew that our construction gifts flowed together within the first week, but because Peter was far distant, it took a few years for the flow to come, and that mostly through Zoom.

Belonging Is Reciprocal. I have much to give to an intentional and committed Community of believers, but there is much needed to make community work that I do not have, starting with drawing people together in the first place. I NEED the gifts and anointings of other people before I could ever belong. But I need those gifts from others in a very specific way. I need them to give their gift to me in community even while NEEDING me and my gift given to them. Belonging is reciprocal, otherwise it doesn’t work.

Here’s the problem. I would NEVER go near any “community” except there be a full love and commitment to the same word of the Gospel to which I have committed myself, that God would be acknowledged among us.

Becoming Real. To paraphrase Moses, “God, we can need other people all we want, but if You ain’t going with us, then forget it.” I need you to receive me and my gifts, two distinct things, inside your embrace of community. For you to be able to do that, I must receive you, in your person and your abilities, as Jesus to me.

I have given myself with great cost to individuals over years, that I might build with them a dwelling place of God, only to discover to my complete evisceration that they were just pretending. For me to be real, that is, a “living stone,” I must be real with God and God with me. For you to be real as a “living stone,” you must be real with God and God with you.

A Way of Seeing. When I look across the twelve points Peter included in his two verses, I see the three categories, with four in each. Let’s just work them together and see what we can see. You have to know that I love this kind of stuff. (It took a bit of moving things around and discovering the headings.)
~

Where I Belong	For Me	With Others	For God
Personal Intimacy	Living Stones	Fitted Together	Spiritual Offerings
Source - Purpose	A Chosen Offspring	A People for God	A Spiritual House
Synergeia - Purpose	A Devoted Family	A Devoted Priesthood	A Royal Priesthood
Completion	The One Who Calls	Into Marvelous Light	A Public Declaration

~
We have three questions. What’s in it for me as a member in particular (and you as well)? What’s in it for God? And what is the structure of the Togetherness? Actually, let’s start with what’s in it for God, first.

What God Needs and Wants. God is Energeia, and He lives by giving Himself away. Yet God cannot give except in the expectation that all that He has given of Himself will return to Him bearing the full completion of God’s intentions and purpose. When we offer spiritual offerings back to God, we are returning to Him that part of Himself He has given so freely to us. Yet we cannot do that as individuals. The return comes back to God only through our worship together.

God DESIRES a dwelling place inside of the Spirit, whether it’s called a house or a body, a form inside creation through which God can make Himself known to all created things as Love, so that creation out from God might LIVE and not remain in vanity.

For Father’s Sake. One of the prophets speaks of a coming priesthood that is devoted only to God, for His purposes. God’s purpose is to synergeo with us together, to call all things into goodness. This is the role of Jesus, our High Priest, now reaching out to include us with Him, that Jesus in us together might be that energeoing force inside creation that acts for God alone.

The end result, the completion, is a public declaration inside of creation that God is God and that He is Good. This public declaration is what SILENCES every horrific accusation screamed against God and thus finally brings peace to the Father’s pain.

As you can see, what’s in it for God, according to Peter, is a big deal: – Life – Place – Advocate – and Peace.

To Become Real. Here’s the thing about what’s in it for me and for you. You and I will never find what we want until God finding what He wants first becomes the whole devotion of our hearts.

I must bring this discussion into what I want, for that is what I know. I want to be real and I want to belong. “Living” means real, and “stone” means made for belonging. To be alive is to know the Father at Home in my heart and to be a stone for building means that I embrace the costliness of reciprocal love. This is where the “quarry” comes into place.

Here is the great paradox of what I want – to belong. What that means is that I really want you to Love me. I want you to Love me so much that you give me a place in your life wherein  you need me in person and in what I can give.

A Chosen Offspring. And that is, as is said, “the Catch-22.” For me to get you to love me, I have to love you first. I have to Love you so much that I want you in my life, I want you to be yourself with me, and I want the wonderful things you can do to be operating in the meeting of my needs. I want to look at this or that in my life and to say, that you, by name, did that for me.

Yet this is the great importance of being a chosen offspring. Jesus said, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” To be called is to become aware of the inheritance. But many get what they want from other believers by pretending or by manipulation. To be the offspring of God is to share with the Father in placing others first, in bearing all cost until the least and the littlest has entered into all the life of Christ. This also is what I want to be, what I signed up for when I was just twenty-one years old.

Family and Calling. A number of times throughout my years in Christian Community, I experienced a full taste of BELONGING. What I tasted was REAL, and so GOOD that I will not rest until I am back in BELONGING forever. What I tasted as REAL in every instance was being part of a devoted family. This was also true with my children. I was never more real than when one of my children put their hand in mine and said, “Daddy.”

But look at that last point. Peter referenced God as the One who calls, but I finally put that in as me. You see, God calls us for one purpose, that we might CALL HIM into our world, that is, the Ekenosis. To be a caller who calls God into our world, that, I can tell you, is the cherry on top.

Living Stones. A living stone is one who knows the Father on the one hand, and who is ready to be fitted together in a committed relationship with other believers in Jesus on the other hand. I know the Father at Home in my heart; I love my brethren and want them to be part of my life. As living, I am the offspring of my Father, chosen to share Hheart with Him. As a “stone,” I belong with others and they with me. My brethren and I are a devoted family together. We are complete and we know God together. As living stones together, God is in our midst as Love. And together, we call God into our world that all might know a God who Loves.  

The Structure of Our Togetherness. Now we must consider the structure of our togetherness. First, we must be fitted together. This means several practical things. One thing it means is to quickly say, “I was wrong, please forgive me.” Another is to quickly say in return, “I forgive you with all joy.” This is being just like God, in Ephesians, that is, giving favor to one another. That giving of favor then leads to the opening of our consciousness that your difference is of great benefit to me and my difference is of great benefit to you.

To “fit together” means to value and reserve a special place in our lives for what each other is good at, what each is in themselves and what each has to give. To fit together is to NEED one another in so many practical ways.

A People for God. Next, the structure of our togetherness is that of “a people for God.” The Greek words are: laos eis peripoiēsin. A people into cherished ownership. I want to use this as descriptive of togetherness. “Laos” comes from the root meaning “stone,” and conveys the meaning of a group of individuals together as “a solid, unified entity,” according to biblehub.com. It includes “common identity, purpose, and faith.”

But this is not just any people. This is a people marked as God’s treasured possession, “reflecting themes of covenant and divine favor.” Thus we can see that a Christ Community is marked by a common identity, a shared purpose, and a unity of faith.

Where I Belong. Next we have “a devoted priesthood.” Yes, there is a priesthood acting for God, but this priesthood is descriptive of the structure of community, that we are there FOR one another. We are devoted to God for one another’s needs. This is actually the last page in our study of Peter, “I Care for My Brethren.”

Finally, “into marvelous light” is the same thing as Ephesians 3:18, that we can know the full extent of God only together. It is only inside Christ Community that the full light of God is made visible. It is only together that we can know our Father as He really is. It is through the Church that God becomes known by all. I know that this is where I BELONG, a people who know God.

Fitted Together. I belong in life together with a people who know God. Inside Christ Community, my brethren and I give favor to one another just as God gives favor to us. For me to be fitted with others, means that I need and want other people in my life, their persons and their gifts. Yet our togetherness is for God as much as for us. We together are God’s cherished possession, His dwelling place. We help one another as a devoted priesthood, concerned with each other’s wants and needs. Together we know a God who is vast beyond knowing. We belong together.

Goodness That Remains. I had no idea that Peter’s off the cuff list of things would turn into this meaningful layout of the fulfillment of our dream and God’s. We began with the Father; we must also finish with Him, the Source and the Completion. And so we return to “Spiritual Offerings,” the giving of ourselves back to God, as God-Life returning to Him. This is something we must do together. Two things throughout my years in community remained only GOOD in my knowing from then until now – eating together and worshipping God together.

We will follow our third box immediately with “Ask and Believe.” God alone will bring us Home, but we must actively believe that He does.

Spiritual Offerings. My brethren and I together know that it is God our Father who wants to belong first, who wants a Home in which to dwell, a body through which to Love. God is Energeia; He lives by giving Himself to others always expecting a return. As we give back to the Father, God welcomes the completion of His Word. We are that spiritual house in which God our Father dwells. We are committed together to act for Father’s sake, to advocate for our God towards all creation. Together, we are the public declaration that God is Good, that God is Love. We silence all that has accused God falsely. We together bring our Father life and joy.

Ask and Believe. Lord Jesus, You say that I am a living stone fitted together with my brothers and sisters as a dwelling place for God our Father, that we and God might belong together, that God might be known as goodness and love through us. Lord Jesus, I ask that You join me with my brethren, that we might need one another, that we might belong together. Lord Jesus, I ask that you make us together to be a temple for our God. Let it be so; it is so.

Patterns of Home. It is clear that we have opened up avenues of thought without expanding on the practical meaning of any. The thing is that within just seven weeks, by God’s grace, we will return to Symmorphy VII: Completion, to the section on Patterns of Home applied to the Kingdom. At the same time, the next lesson is “I Follow Jesus,” with Peter focusing on suffering with Christ. 

When we get to the patterns of home applied to the Kingdom, this lesson has given us much practicality to think about and make use of, but completing our study of Peter will give us the heart and the costliness of that firstfruits of Christ that makes belonging possible, for God and for us. The Spirit always leads us.

Reading for Next Time. I am very glad that I wrote this letter at the same time as reading The Alchemist. Now I can go back to continuing the unfolding of that story knowing much more clearly what God would do inside of me through it.

The next lesson is titled “I Follow Jesus.” It will cover 1 Peter 2:18 to 3:12. Yet we know, primarily from the Gospel according to John (including his letters and vision) that to “follow” Jesus is not outward, as would be known in this world, but is referencing two incredible things. First, Jesus makes us to be just like Himself, beginning with “I can do nothing of myself.” And second, it means that Jesus shares His ministry with us, of bringing others to the Father.

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, it is time for You to come Home. Father, to belong is the deepest desire of our hearts, to be needed by others in our persons and in our gifts, to share life as a family together. For that to be true of us, Father, it is True of You, first.

“Father, we know that You want people to need You, in Your Person and in Your gifts. You want a people who will acknowledge together that You alone are Love and that You are all Love among us. Father, we know that we become real, truly alive, when we are together, needing one another, with You in our midst. Father, we know that You become real in our world out from Your Home among us together.

“Father, we stand as Your priesthood inside of Jesus, first for You and second for one another. Father, we together are Your advocate inside this world. And Father, we are Your advocate for all our brethren all across the earth, that they all might come together into Your dwelling place, a people made for You, Your cherished possession.

“God, our Father, prevail in the midst of Your Church. Triumph over all who oppose You and who refuse to believe that You always speak the Truth. Father, remove all that binds, that Your declaration might be publicly known. Father, You are Good, all the time. Father, You are Love among us, for You always answer us.”