And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

Matthew 3:9

Abraham has children who are not the result of his energies and the super-religious are still thinking that ancestry has a place in God’s plan for the human race. When the time came to wake up to this news  – that Abraham’s children can never claim to be his because of their energy –  the people slept on.

Who your parents are is immaterial to God

Stone potential is still at the heart of God’s generosity to humanity.  The benefits of God’s intervention are not decided by our works, or obedience, or efforts, or who our ancestors are.   The identity we now have – saved – is a gift. Please do not get this wrong. Identity comes before good deeds.

By grace you are saved and not by means of works.

Eph. 2:8

Our Lord’s messenger aimed this saying at a generation who thought they could fake a response to the call for change. Abraham’s descendants through Isaac were showing that they were on their way to complete the record of resistance to God and good talk about doing God’s work or will. He called them vipers.

Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Luke 3:7

For the reader of the New Testament the diversity of stones is hard to miss and the problem of stone identity remains to this day, especially when we realize that we too are stones. Each stone is uniquely designed for unique purposes to serve Abraham’s destiny.

The idea that stones can just sit there and become Abraham’s children is a shocking idea, especially when one has had no patterns but heavy burdens and hard work. The rest the Lord offers seems like a fantasy! Men, who think they have a defining role in building God’s building, can be expected to misidentify God’s anointed.

To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,

1 Peter 2:4

There is definitely riveting drama in the cornerstone’s reception.

Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?

Matthew 21:42

Our stone identity comes from One called “living”, and the living evidently needs to be distinguished from the stones that have come from death (the same as the darkness). Christ is the lifegiving stone.

The difference between  cornerstone (Christ), foundation (the apostles) and ourselves needs to be recognized lest we elevate ourselves to a seat we cannot occupy. Far too many people have refused to submit to apostolic witness due to a plethora of agents calling themselves apostles and prophets (even bishop is thought to be some kind of authority like the eyewitnesses of our Lord). Be that as it may, there is only one foundation and our contemporaries (in all the succeeding generations) could not possible be that foundation. The foundation was set, and needs no addition.

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; Ephesians 2:20

Certain stones are irrelevant because they only kill

But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:

2 Corinthians 3:7

Every time you run away from something that Yeshua said or something the Apostle said to insist on something that a prophet said or something that Moses said you are denying yourself activation as a living stone in the spiritual house Christ is trying to building.

The most dangerous stone pictures are the two tablets and the rejection of the chief cornerstone. They each serve their purpose, but to avoid becoming mired in blocking behaviours. We have to reject the proposition that anyone today has a leg to stand on treating people as outsiders, common or unclean. Ask Peter! He got caught eating with Gentiles and was raked over the coals by the allies of James and corrected by Paul. No living stone can go back to those deadly attitudes and practices that came from Moses about outsiders, common or unclean. It is truly surprising what the apostolic record has to say about the reversal of outsider and unclean.

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

Titus 1:15