Get ready to start a journey…a journey through the pages of the Bible and the pages of your life.
Early in life, we learn to live by standards. From our first report card to our SAT score to our annual job performance review, we strive to meet certain levels of achievement. Opportunities and career advancement often come about (or not) based on our accomplishments. But for the believer, how we stack up against others or a system of abstract ideals is not enough. God himself is our standard.
C. H. Spurgeon pastored in London in the 1800s. His writing is relevant and straight to the point. In a book called An All-round Ministry, Spurgeon exhorts believers to do something that counts for Jesus.
The great prophets of old were used by God to serve us. Let that thought rattle around in your head for a while. Because of God’s grace and love for us, the “Spirit of Christ” (1 Peter 1:11) gave visions of the future regarding the coming of Jesus. The prophets on the Old Testament side of the cross did not fully grasp all they were writing about. But for believers, on the New Testament side of the cross, we have the gracious privilege of seeing words written seven hundred years before Jesus lived on this earth come to fulfillment. The prophets were “serving not themselves” but us.
Today I got word that a friend’s wife passed away from surgery complications. It was so sudden and so unexpected for this young family. Words can’t express the devastation and grief. And through our tears, we anchor our hearts in the certain hope we have in Jesus. This confidence within every true believer is confirmed day by day as we read the Bible. Our confidence is built on the imperishable Word that “remains forever” (1 Peter 1:25).
The apostle Peter walked with Jesus, and he had stories to tell. Stories about Jesus healing the sick (his mother-in-law, for one), calming the sea, walking on water, feeding the five thousand, and raising the dead. He could tell you how he stood at a distance and watched Jesus die, then saw them take his body down and place it in a tomb. He could also tell you that three days later, he found the tomb empty and Jesus alive! His readers had not seen Jesus, but he had. One of the reasons he wrote this book was to hand off the faith to the next generation.
Peter wrote his first letter to the believers scattered throughout what today is Northern Turkey. The letter was penned in late AD 64 or early 65. During that time, believers in Rome were experiencing intense persecution. It is probable that Peter was in Rome, watching the persecution firsthand. Normally the physical mistreatment of believers started in the larger cities, then spread through the countryside. Peter warned his readers that “now for a little while,” they may have to suffer. But like fire refines gold, so trial refines faith.
The life of the believer is a life of living hope. God’s great mercy saves, and through the death, burial, and resurrection of his Son, the road home has been paved. The heavenly inheritance that awaits us is “kept in heaven” for us. Unlike the shiny objects that distract us, it is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.”
Grace is the entire package. It initiates our relationship with God and takes us all the way home.
Let’s face it. We really are what we think about and desire. Our minds are the GPS that leads us to our “treasure,” and our hearts are the engine that carries us to our “prize.” Our minds determine the direction; our hearts provide the drive. That’s why the passage today is so important.
Aliens. That’s what we were before Jesus. We were “excluded from citizenship…foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God…” (Eph. 2:12 NIV). But Jesus changed that…forever. We “who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13 NIV).
My passport says that I am a citizen of the United States. I am very thankful for that. I am even more thankful for my heavenly passport. And that is all because of Jesus. Here’s what Paul says in Philippians 3:20.