Author: Craig

Trust and Love

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Scripture:     Read 1 Peter 1:21-22

21Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.

22You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.
Observation:

Jesus and the Gospel restores and makes it possible for our trust in God to grow.

Responding to Jesus and the Gospel is a form of obedience that cleanses us from sin; sin impacts our relationships.  Sin complicates life such that its difficult to love.  But now in Christ we can love sincerely and deeply.

Application:

Two things I know that need to keep happening in my life.  1.  To keep trusting God.  Jesus is making this possible.  He has shown how trust worthy God is.  And 2.  To keep letting Jesus cleanse me of sin so that my love capacities grow.

Without these two works of God’s grace I will use people rather than love them.  And I will get stuck in patterns of unbelief, not trusting God with my life, being independent from Him and having a low tolerance for the stressors of life, easily adopting lust, gluttony, anger, impatience, prejudice, and self-righteousness as the go-to positions of my heart.

Prayer:     Heavenly Father thank you so much for giving me the grace to trust you.  Forgive me, cleanse me for the unbelief that lurks in my heart.  That unbelief is so destructive!  Cleanse me and give me the grace to love sincerely.  Give me the courage to take off the masks that keep me from loving and being loved.  Cause the love of our church to grow so that we can “love each other deeply with all our hearts.”  AMEN.

 

Awesome God!

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Scripture:     1 Peter 1:17-20 NLT

17And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as “foreigners in the land.” 18For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. 19It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 20God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but he has now revealed him to you in these last days.

Observation:

The fact that God, our heavenly Father, judges our lives, creates a most awesome love for Him.  — reverent fear — generated by a new awareness that He has sacrificially paid the ransom for our souls through Jesus.

Observations on this question:  What does this passage reveal about God?
God is our heavenly Father.
God hears our prayers.
God judges our lives.
God rewards us according to the manner of our lives.
God has paid the ransom to bring us into a meaningful life rather than an empty life.
God paid the ransom with the blood of Jesus.
Jesus is the sinless, spotless, Lamb of God.
God chose Jesus as our ransom before the world began.
God reveals Jesus the ransom to those He is calling out.

Application:

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, Grace is not cheap:  “cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”

The Gospel of Jesus’ grace and the forgiveness His gives me, makes me fully alive to the reality of God and creates a thoughtful, love-generated, awe of God.  God is awesome!

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, you are awesome!  Thank you for the grace of knowing you.  I’m amazed that you paid the price for my freedom.  Thank you for revealing Jesus to me and ushering me into a meaningful and full life.  Give me wisdom for living today.  I give you my life so that you may reveal Jesus to others and give this grace to them.  AMEN.

Be Holy. But How?

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Scripture: 1 Peter 1:14-16

14As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
Observation:

Vs. 14 — Peter gives us a contrast with a way of life when we were not redeemed and regenerated by Jesus.  “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.”

Now we are children of God, born of the Spirit and the Father’s will.

Now we have a capacity for obedience that we lacked before.

This capacity for obedience in our behaviour is enlarged as we experience the relationship with God that the Gospel now makes possible:  we are called into relationship with the Holy God.    vs. 15

For now by the Gospel we have been made holy.  vs. 16  “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Application:  Be holy, but how?

Holiness has to do with relationships.  It is a quality of God that is reflected in His relationships.  He is without fault, uncleanness, or imperfection.  God is holy.

To be brought into relationship with God required the work of Jesus expressed in the Gospel.  Through this Gospel we are forgiven, cleansed, declared righteous, and brought into relationship with God through the work of Jesus Christ at the cross.

To be holy in my conduct, means that in my conduct in relationships begins to reflect the character of God.  The Law is helpful to let me see God’s vision for relationships.  However, the rules do not accomplish holiness in me.  It is the grace of God through Jesus’ love and power that establishes holiness.  Now “being” holy, is a product of relationship with God.

What He has worked into me, I must now work out.  The Spirit is empowering us to pushing back against the conforming mold of our sinful passions.

Prayer:     Oh Heavenly Father, Yes I agree with you! I know my sin and I am far from your holiness in my own strength.  Lord have mercy on me and continue your transforming work.  Without the Gospel of Jesus, I would be consumed by your holiness.  Instead you have forgiven me, and cleansed me.  Now by your power, let me BE holy!  Show me my relational patterns that are not holy and lead me in the way of Jesus.  AMEN.

Thinking Grace

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Scripture:   1 Peter 1:13-14

13Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

 

Observation:  

Peter recognizes that the Christian life is inclined toward action.  vs 13.

But, we must prepare our minds for action.  And we must be concerned about what kind of action we are giving ourselves to.

Sober-minded:  A kind of clarity and rationality.  NOT — drunk, unclear, foggy, or acting without wisdom.  We know what we are doing and we have considered the implications.

Our preparation consists on a kind of “Gospel-thinking” that considers the grace that is ours by the revealing of Jesus Christ.

Application:

Habits come in all shapes and sizes in our lives:  emotional, physical, mental, and social.  Their impact can be life-giving or deathly.  Habits by definition become “automated.”  In our life before receiving Jesus’ life-giving Spirit we may have lived without thought about the impact of some habits; they were our passions and we just responded without thought.

A new kind of thinking discipline is required.  Gospel-thinking moves us into a contemplation of our relationships informed by God.  We are realistic about the brokenness we experience in this world, but we are also extraordinarily hopeful because of the entrance of Jesus into our relationships–His humble birth, His ministry, His redemptive work on the cross, and His victory over death in the Resurrection.  Now by the power of His Spirit we glorify the Father by living through the perspective of the Cross in all our relationships.

This kind of thinking prepares us for action.  Action with Jesus is a grace-gift we live in now.  The Scripture proclaims “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” (See Romans 12:1-3.

Prayer:   Heavenly Father train me for action by guiding me with your Spirit to meditate on the glory of the Gospel of your Son.  Thank you for loving me.  Now by the grace given me may I act with love for you and for people.  AMEN.

Why bother reading the Old Testament?

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Scripture:  1 Peter 1:9-12

9obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

10Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

 

 

Observations:  The Gospel of Jesus is connected to the Old Testament.  Peter, writes of the “prophets” and their desire to see into God’s salvation plans — to reveal Jesus Christ and bring us into the Kingdom of God.

The prophets of the Old Testament were not serving themselves, they were serving the church– the people– that Jesus would call to Himself through the Gospel when they wrote about the salvation that was to come through Christ.

The prophets prophesied about the grace that is ours through Jesus Christ.

Applications:  How to read the Old Testament?  Peter had the OT as his Scripture.  We get the benefit of the whole cannon — New Testament and Old Testament.  But how to read the Old Testament?  Why “should” we read the OT?

 

Peter gives us a clue:  the Old Testament is preparing people to recognize Jesus Christ and receive His grace.  Understanding who Jesus is and why Jesus suffered on the cross comes through the OT.  When the Apostles began to write about the life of Jesus they linked the history of Jesus to what they learned from the OT.  Not only that, Jesus Himself used the OT as the reference for teaching the Disciples why the Messiah must suffer.  (Luke 24:25-27)

The OT shows us what God is up to in the sufferings of Christ and then the glories Jesus had after the Crucifixion and Resurrection.  The OT provides us with confirmation about the identify of Jesus.  It also shows us why God has acted through the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus to bring salvation to us.

Prayer:  Thank you Heavenly Father for letting me experience today what the prophets longed to see and even angels long to know about.  Thank you for the salvation you have brought to us.  Through Jesus’ suffering and His glory you have forgiven my sin.  You have overwhelmed me with grace.  Thank you for your Holy Spirit who brings me into your family and makes the reality of salvation an experience I have today.  May I not neglect your Word… show me the glory of Jesus as I read it.  AMEN.