Study Desk

Do you think the Scriptures mean nothing? The Scriptures say, "The Spirit God made to live in us wants us only for himself."

But the kindness God shows is greater. As the Scripture says, "God is against the proud, but he is kind to the humble."

So give yourselves to God. Stand against the devil, and he will run away from you.

Come near to God and he will come near to you. You are sinners, so clean sin out of your lives. You are trying to follow God and the world at the same time. Make your thinking pure.

God is the one who gave us the law, and he is the Judge. He is the only one who can save and destroy. So it is not right for you to judge anyone.

So always tell each other the wrong things you have done. Then pray for each other. Do this so that God can heal you. Anyone who lives the way God wants can pray, and great things will happen.

God planned long ago to choose you and to make you his holy people, which is the Spirit's work. God wanted you to obey him and to be made clean by the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I pray that you will enjoy more and more of God's grace and peace.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God has great mercy, and because of his mercy he gave us a new life. This new life brings us a living hope through Jesus Christ's resurrection from death.

Now we wait to receive the blessings God has for his children. These blessings are kept for you in heaven. They cannot be ruined or be destroyed or lose their beauty.

In the past you did not have the understanding you have now, so you did the evil things you wanted to do. But now you are children of God, so you should obey him and not live the way you did before.

Be holy in everything you do, just as God is holy. He is the one who chose you.

In the Scriptures God says, "Be holy, because I am holy."

You pray to God and call him Father, but he will judge everyone the same way—by what they do. So while you are visiting here on earth, you should live with respect for God.

You believe in God through Christ. God is the one who raised him from death and gave honor to him. So your faith and your hope are in God.

The Lord Jesus is the living stone. The people of the world decided that they did not want this stone. But he is the one God chose as one of great value. So come to him.

You also are like living stones, and God is using you to build a spiritual house. You are to serve God in this house as holy priests, offering him spiritual sacrifices that he will accept because of Jesus Christ.

For them he is also "a stone that makes people stumble, a rock that makes people fall." People stumble because they don't obey what God says. This is what God planned to happen to those people.

But you are his chosen people, the King's priests. You are a holy nation, people who belong to God. He chose you to tell about the wonderful things he has done. He brought you out of the darkness of sin into his wonderful light.

In the past you were not a special people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now God has given you his mercy.

People who don't believe are living all around you. They may say that you are doing wrong. So live such good lives that they will see the good you do, and they will give glory to God on the day he comes.