Hello Advent Family,

Have you ever rid yourselves of something?  Maybe you completely cut sugar or caffeine out of your diet.  It takes hard work and a very specific and intentional effort to successfully accomplish this.  What about a craving have you had one of those before? Cravings can be very powerful. I had a craving for some nachos last night and threw on some clothes and ran to the store right before it closed to get some chips and cheese. It was the last thing I wanted to do but I had a craving for the nachos so I did it.  Peter talks about both riding ourselves and craving let’s look at his words in I Peter 2.

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 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.

Peter wants us to rid ourselves of areas of sin that will detract our relationship with God and crave spiritual milk, or that which will build up our relationship with Him.  That is the simple but not so easy key to growing our relationship with God.  Rid ourselves of that which detracts and crave that which builds us up.  The problem is too often we crave the “nachos” of life and don’t seek out the “milk” which builds us up.  Today have some
“milk” the more you do the more you will begin to crave it and rid yourself of those things in life that distract and keep us from growing in our relationship with God.

In His Grip,

Pastor Dave