Lent Devotional

Hi! Tommy Shelton here. Fellowship has been my home church since the mid-80s when I moved to Dallas out of college. In the mid-90s, Fellowship commissioned me to serve with East-West Ministries, first in Moscow and later in Dallas. Since the early 2000s, I’ve been blessed to serve in various leadership roles—elder, executive pastor, operations pastor, and most recently in the administration of our finances, human resources, and other business aspects of church. What a journey it has been! For 40 years, I’ve been profoundly formed by the Gospel of God’s grace for which Fellowship has always been known. I will never forget realizing that the grace which first saved me is the same grace that is sanctifying me and will one day carry me into the arms of Jesus. Hallelujah! I truly cannot imagine my life apart from the Body of Christ at Fellowship. I am so grateful!

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I see Jesus as the stone the builders rejected but who has become the cornerstone.

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-Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22-23 in the parable of the wicked tenants to describe his own rejection and eventual vindication—Matthew 21:43, Mark 12:10-11, Luke 20:17.

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-Peter quotes it when defending the healing of a lame man before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:11.

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-In Ephesians 2:20 and 1 Peter 2:7, Paul and Peter use it to describe Jesus as the foundation of the Church.

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I looked this up in Google AI Mode and the results were rich:

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-The cornerstone is the first stone laid at the junction of two walls, serving three functions: 1) Foundation & Support: It’s the largest and strongest stone, bearing the weight of the entire structure. 2) Alignment: Its placement determined the angle and orientation of all other stones; if misaligned, the whole building would be crooked. 3) Unity: It bound two walls together, symbolizing how Christ unites different groups (such as Jews and Gentiles) into one spiritual house.

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-The same stone that provides a foundation for believers becomes a "stone of stumbling" for those who reject it (1 Peter 2:7-8) by not aligning their lives with Christ.

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I don’t want to be like the rejecting builders, the wicked tenants, the chief priests and Pharisees, and those who stumble and fall over this stone that is my Jesus. Despite my thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds to the contrary at times, I ultimately really do want to embrace, follow, and worship Him for who He truly is. I want Him to be the cornerstone on which my life is built. I want to live fully into who He says I am: a chosen person, royal priest, member of a holy nation, His special possession—that I may declare the praises of Him who called me out of darkness into His wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9). And, by that amazing grace that I spoke of above, I will!

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In short, we honor God and bless others when we fully embrace Jesus as the “cornerstone” of the foundation on which we live and build our lives and relate to others and the world. We tell our stories of how the Father's grace, mercy, and love have been poured out on us in the person of Jesus, who is Christ in us, the hope of glory, and the Holy Spirit who makes us His temple. We allow ourselves to be poured out as love for others in hopes that they, too, will embrace Jesus and not reject Him or stumble over Him. And, again, by God’s amazing grace, we will! we will!