1 Peter 1
1I, Peter, am an apostle on assignment by Jesus, the Messiah, writing to exiles scattered to the four winds. Not one is missing, not one forgotten. 2God the Father has his eye on each of you, and has determined by the work of the Spirit to keep you obedient through the sacrifice of Jesus. May everything good from God be yours!
A New Life 3What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, 4including a future in heaven--and the future starts now! 5God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you'll have it all--life healed and whole.
6I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. 7Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.
8You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don't see him, yet you trust him--with laughter and singing. 9Because you kept on believing, you'll get what you're looking forward to: total salvation.
10The prophets who told us this was coming asked a lot of questions about this gift of life God was preparing. 11The Messiah's Spirit let them in on some of it--that the Messiah would experience suffering, followed by glory. They clamored to know who and when. 12All they were told was that they were serving you, you who by orders from heaven have now heard for yourselves--through the Holy Spirit--the Message of those prophecies fulfilled. Do you realize how fortunate you are? Angels would have given anything to be in on this!
A Future in God 13So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives. 14Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn't know any better then; you do now. 15As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. 16God said, "I am holy; you be holy."
17You call out to God for help and he helps--he's a good Father that way. But don't forget, he's also a responsible Father, and won't let you get by with sloppy living.
Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. 18It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. 19He paid with Christ's sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. 20And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately--at the end of the ages--become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. 21It's because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God.
22Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. 23Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God's living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! 24That's why the prophet said,
The old life is a grass life,
its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers;
Grass dries up, flowers droop,
25God's Word goes on and on forever.
This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.
What this means to me:
God's always watching us, which is a good thing isn't it, it means we can call out for help when in a difficult situtation and he'll be right there for us, sorta like when your having a nightmare and you wake up screaming your parents rush into your room to see what's wrong, even though they already know that you had a nightmare. So Paul acknowledges that God is so great for giving us this new life in Christ. He's 100% right you know, God could have given up on mankind as soon as we sinned, but he found a way to bring us back into his court. Through his son Christ Jesus. I can't wait until the day when I'm taking into heaven, we always think to the future about that day don't we? Well Paul address a really interesting point, the future is now. The day when you'll have your full reward is coming, but God is watching us in the here and now, and preparing us for heaven. We need to persevere for the trials to come. Most outside the body of Christ think, we have it all, that are lives are all rosey. While it's true that Christians in the western world arn't persecuted as much as those maytr's in some of the countries in the east and the middle eastern part of the world, we still face many problems. So we are told to perservere through them right? Ok good. You are blessed for believing with your faith. Do you ever question if you truely think God is real. Well I once prayed to God to ask him if I truely believed he was real and you know what he said? "If you had doubts I wasn't real, then would you be talking to me right now?" Ya, my God has a sense of humor but I've never forgot that lesson. You have faith in God when you pray, worship, and teach about him. Heck you have to have some faith to even stand learning about him and taking it to heart right? Paul commends those who believe what they have not witnessed, he was a witness and he had a hard time believing sometimes, and look you have never seen Jesus in flesh yet, you believe. Now that's faith. Paul warns us to be ready to recieve the gifts, don't make your heart like stone to Jesus. Instead surrender your life to God every moment of the day so his plan, his purpose for your life at that very moment can be fulfilled. Don't be lazy and conform to society and pretend everything is hunky dory, thats the easy way out. Live for God instead, you'll be doing it in heaven, you might as well practice now. Obey God's plan for your life instead of living for your own desires. 1 Peter 4:2 says, "As a result he no longer lives for evil human desires but for the will of God". Don't worry I memorized it, it doesn't count as my memory verse if I've already memorized it right? If you need help ask for and God will help, but remember God won't let you get away with sloppy work, if he provides you a way out of your problem he expects you to follow it 100% of the way, not call it quits at 85%. Remember how much God sacrificed to get you out of sin, don't you think all your time and effort is small favor to do for I guy who bled and died for your pain and suffering. He died, so you could Live. He knew in advance that you would screw up, so he planned for Jesus to fix your problem. Your life is changed, you can't ever go back to being obvious anymore, if you try your just ignoring the greatest sacrifice ever made. It's like someone buying you a new car because you desperatly needed one, and you selling it. No worse you trashed it and didn't even care. You want to embrace your new life? Good start by being in the word, and I mean everyday, heck if you can pull that off for a year, try once every 12 hours, then try once every single moment you can. Every other moment you can spend with the Master talking about what you've read or how his creation is doing with a great gift you were given at birth. Life, and how your going to work towards the greater gift to come, eternal life.
So I'm going to read all of 1 Peter in the coming days, I encourage you to read along with me. 5 minutes a day is all it takes to read a chapter in this book, and its a small favor you honestly owe to God for taking away your eternal death.
Memory verse:
"Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God's living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself!"
1 Peter 1:23
This one is going to be a doozy to remember.
-Brent
No comments:
Post a Comment