Lord, this morning as I sat down to my quiet time I felt You remind me to read 1 Peter. I so enjoyed it and read chapter 2 today.
It starts off setting our mindsets straight and I really had to pray and repent for allowing every thought and emotion and desire to literally fall out of my mouth. In some way I felt justified, that if that's how I feel, then it must be valid...uhoh... I couldn't be more wrong, I had to repent and will have to daily, as it says:
1 Peter 2:1-2 "Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good." So, if I want to grow up in my salvation... I have to tend to these... ouch...
In reading, I realised the juxtaposition; we are a "royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that we may proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. We weren't a people, but You made us a people; we hadn't obtained mercy, but You have freely given us Your mercy... "
Therefore we have to abstain from all earthly lusts, we have to be obedient to all earthly masters bringing good repute to You and Your Kingdom as a result of our salvation.
ALSO, so that by doing so we would establish, gain and maintain our dominion:
1 Peter 2:15-17 "For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor."
Doesn't this show a building up of us as believers, listen, when we do good - we establish a good reputation among non-believers ("silence the ignorant talk of foolish people); we create and establish dominion ("Live as free people") yet not abuse our liberty by holding ourselves accountable to God ("live as God's slaves) this reminds me of Israel asking God for a king when He was their perfect King who brought awesome freedom, but they wanted men who would enslave them... think about where we are doing this, this is a deep one, ask God to show you, where have I rejected You and Your word and taken man's beliefs and opinions and ensnared, trapped, enslaved myself... ooohhh
I believe that when we have checked our heart motives as per the above, the rest will fall in line, it's like righteousness, it's about alignment. We will out of the overflow of our hearts:
- Show proper respect to everyone
- Love the family of believers
- Fear God
- Honour the emperor - I guess this embodies everything about our governing agencies that we probably loath, but we have to honour them.
This to me is the scary part of this verse,
1 Pet 2:7-8
7 Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who [b]are disobedient,
“The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone,”
8 and
“A stone of stumbling
And a rock of offense.”
Peter doesn't say, "to those who don't believe, Jesus is a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense,". He does say, "to those who are disobedient,"
This to me is the crux of the matter, people often say the devil also believes in God, that's true, the only fact he can't deny because he's the father of lies, but I digress... the point is, if the devil believes in God, then it can't be anyone who believes is going to heaven, there must be further criteria, what must we do to be saved... let's take Peter up again in Acts where the people, so deeply convicted by the preach he just gave, said "what must we do to be saved?"
Acts 2:38 "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the [a]remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Thereby, receiving the Holy Spirit we are enabled to live a life of obedience, where the Lord will come back and look for those who have been living by faith in the Holy Spirit and bring about our final Salvation, at that time, until then, we must remain obedient so that the Lord and His ways will not become:
“A stone of stumbling
And a rock of offense.”
Oh, God, help me first, to be obedient, that I may never miss what You call me to, forgive me, Father, where I have and help me I ask You to lead me in Your paths of righteousness for Your name's sake, that I may honour and obey You at all times and come into full submission of my mind, thoughts, will, emotions and my desires to say and do pure things that would cause others to Honour You, in Jesus' mighty wonderful name, Amen
