Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

My name is Bill Crowder and I have entitled our reading Built on Christ.

We have all sorts of names for groups of animals.

No doubt you've heard of a flock of sheep, a herd of cattle, or even a

gaggle of geese, but some names may surprise you. A group of crows is called a murder. How about a

congregation of alligators or a crash of rhinoceruses? Have you heard of a building of rooks, which are Eurasian crows? Building, in fact,

is one of the names in the Bible for believers in Jesus. You are God's building, wrote the

Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 3. There are other names for believers as well, the flock, the body of Christ, brothers and sisters, and more.

The building metaphor recurs in 1. Peter 2, verse 5,

as Peter tells the church,

You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.

Then, in verse 6, Peter quotes Isaiah 28, verse 16.

See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen, and precious cornerstone.

Jesus is the very foundation of his building.

We may have the sense that it's our job to build the church,

but in Matthew 16, Jesus said,

I will build my church.

We're chosen by God to declare the praises of Him

who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light,

1 Peter 2 verse 9.

As we declare those praises, we become instruments in his hand as he does his good work.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from 1 Petereter chapter 2 verses 4 through 10 as you come to him

...