Wouldn’t it be nice to have a firm foundation for your life, someone on which you can always rely? Well, verse 6 says that Jesus is the cornerstone, the One Who makes provides us the structure and support we need, the assurance that we are in the right place, lined up in accordance with God’s will.

And He does this for all who trust in Him, for all who as verse 4 says have come to Him, for all who as verse 7 says believe on Him. In fact, Peter says that all of us are living stones, built together into one spiritual house. That means we don’t just have Jesus to rely on – we can also lean on all our Christian brothers and sisters, even while we also provide support for them.

And what should a life in such relationship with Christ and with one another look like? Verses 1 and 2 give us a summary. Our relationship with others should be free from self-centered wickedness – instead, we should love others just as much and in the same way that we love ourselves. At the same time, our greatest desire should be for the Word of God – we should crave it just as infants crave their mothers’ milk. Only such immersion in God’s Word can keep us close to Christ and close to one another, just as close as stones are set in a wall.

And just as we long for God to feed us with His Word, the goal of our lives should be to give Him praise and glory. That’s what Peter envisions in verse 5 – just as priests did in the temple, we are to offer up our whole lives to God, devoting all we are and all we have to the One Who gave up everything for us.

Of course, there is another option. It’s possible for us to reject Jesus, just as the religious leaders of the day refused to recognize His authority. It’s possible for us to be disobedient to God’s Word, to imagine that we are capable of deciding for ourselves what’s right and wrong. It’s possible to treat other people with malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander, trying to build ourselves up by tearing other people down. But those who try to be independent of Christ in this way, those who aren’t joined to Him and His people as the stones are joined together in a wall, well, they are bound to trip over Him sooner or later.

No, it doesn’t make sense to ignore the Son of God. And why should we want to, once we’ve tasted of His kindness, the tremendous sacrifice He made for us?

I Peter 2:1-8 (NAS)

Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
2 like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,
3 if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
4 And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God,
5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6 For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed.”
7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve, “The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,”
8 and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.