GOD SMILES ON YOU - God made you to love you, and he longs for you to love him back. He says, “I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me.” Can you sense God’s passion for you in this verse? God deeply loves you and desires your love in return. He longs for you to know him and spend time with him. This is why learning to love God and to be loved by him should be the greatest objective of your life. Nothing else comes close in importance. Jesus called it the greatest commandment.

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The God Who Smiles

May God Smile On You

BY RICK WARREN

“May the Lord smile on you” (Numbers 6:25 NLT).
The smile of God is the goal of life.

Since pleasing God is the first purpose of your life, your most important task is to discover how to do that.

The Bible says, “Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it” (Ephesians 5:10 MSG).

Fortunately, the Bible gives us a clear example of a life that gives pleasure to God in the story of Noah.

In Noah’s day, the entire world had become morally bankrupt. Everyone lived for their own pleasure, not God’s.

God couldn’t find anyone on earth interested in pleasing Him, so He was grieved and regretted making man.

God became so disgusted with the human race that he considered wiping it out. 

But there was one man who made God smile. The Bible says,“Noah was a pleasure to the Lord” (Genesis 6:8 LB).

God said, “This guy brings me pleasure. He makes me smile. I’ll start over with his family.”

Because Noah brought pleasure to God, you and I are alive today.

Over the next few days, we will learn from Noah’s life the five acts of worship that make God smile. Here is the first one:
God smiles when we love him supremely. Noah loved God more than anything else in the world, even when no one else did!

The Bible tells us Noah “consistently followed God’s will and enjoyed a close relationship with him” (Genesis 6:9 NLT).

This is what God wants most from you: a relationship! It’s the most astounding truth in the universe: our Creator wants to fellowship with us.

God made you to love you, and he longs for you to love him back. He says, “I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me” (Hosea 6:6 LB).

Can you sense God’s passion for you in this verse? God deeply loves you and desires your love in return.

He longs for you to know him and spend time with him. This is why learning to love God and to be loved by him should be the greatest objective of your life. 

Nothing else comes close in importance. Jesus called it the greatest commandment.

He said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:37–38 NIV).

http://pastorrick.com/devotional/english/may-god-smile-on-you_554

  

PECULIAR PEOPLE - Christians or believers are people who belong to God. They are God’s own possession or “God’s own special people.” They are born again and are different from the world around them because they are being transformed by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. They are born again by the Spirit of God and by believing in Christ for salvation, they have received the right to become children of God.

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Peculiar 

People

What 1 Peter 2:9 means when it refers to believers as peculiar people

The phrase “peculiar people” in 1 Peter 2:9 comes from the King James Version and is not seen in the more modern English translations.

This is because at the time the King James Version was translated, the word peculiar was often used to refer to something belonging to someone, as in someone’s property.

If we look up the word peculiar in a dictionary today we would still see that is one of several meanings this word can have.

Probably the most common usage of the word peculiar today is referring to someone or something that is strange, odd, or uncommon.

Yet alternative meanings in the dictionary still tell us that this word can be used to describe something or someone that “belongs exclusively to some person, group, or thing” or to refer to “a property or privilege belonging exclusively or characteristically to a person.”

The original meaning of the Greek words translated “peculiar” in 1 Peter 2:9  is indeed what is meant in this passage.

In this verse, Peter is not saying that Christians are odd or unusual people, even though the world often looks at us that way.

What this passage is communicating is that Christians or believers are people who belong to God, they are His own possession.

Another way of saying it is that believers are “God’s own special people.”

As we compare the different English translations of this verse and consider the alternative meaning of the word peculiar, it becomes clear that peculiar in this verse is referring to the fact that believers are a “special people” because they were chosen from before the foundation of the earth to be “God’s own possession.”

Those who are born again are different from the world around them because they are being transformed by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Also they are different because, having been born again by the Spirit of God and believing in Christ for salvation, they have received “the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

While it is true that believers are different, it is the believers’ standing as the adopted children of God, joint heirs with Christ Jesus, and God’s own special people that make us “peculiar.”

For reference, here are the ways several modern English translations translate this passage:

“But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;” (1 Peter 2:9 NASB)

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;” (1 Peter 2:9 NKJV)

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9 ESV)

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9 HCSB)

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9 NIV)

https://www.gotquestions.org/peculiar-people.html