Just Give me a Sign

During a walk in our neighborhood, I passed a home with a decorative sign in the front flower bed with fancy script which read “He is Risen!” I then glanced toward the back yard where I saw a fence with another sign—an unattractive black and orange, block-lettered “Beware of Dog!”

The thought immediately struck me that, for so many of us as Christians, our “home,” our lives, have very similar signs and warnings visible to those around us. In the casual passing glance at our “front yard,” we have the fancy, glossy, yet stock message connecting the intent of our faith—the obligatory “yeah, I’m a Christian.”

But then, as people get to know us more, and we let them see around back to our “fences,” they realize they had better beware of “the dog” that lives there and protects the private domain we keep hidden securely and, often shamedly, from view.

Jesus’ goal in our lives is to tear down the fences and let the same message that’s in the front yard be the message of the back yard—and all throughout the house.

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” —1 Peter 2:4-6 NIV