Believing without seeing
1 Peter 1:8-9
The very same Peter who wrote 1 Peter is the same fisherman who saw Jesus resurrected. He was the second disciple to reach the tomb after Mary had announced worriedly that Jesus was not in the tomb and that the stone had been rolled out of place. When he entered the tomb, he saw that Jesus’ body wasn’t there (John 20:6-7).
John himself writes that when he went into the tomb and saw the grave clothes lying there, he believed that Jesus had been resurrected. Mary, after encountering the resurrected Jesus in person, exclaimed to the other disciples, “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18)
Then Jesus appeared to the rest of the disciples, and John records, “Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord” (John 20:20)
Thomas missed the meeting with Jesus and, having not seen with his own eyes, declared, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” (John 20:25) But he too saw Jesus, and then he too believed, John tells us.
Jesus went on to say, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)
I guess it is no surprise then that; “seeing is believing” is a proverbial saying that is so universally understood. And yet Jesus, when he was praying for his disciples and for you and I prayed for us who would believe in Him without seeing Him; “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.” (John 17:20)
In his letter, Peter, one of the ones who believed because he saw Jesus, one who believed because he was an eyewitness of Jesus’ life, transfiguration, death, resurrection & ascension, wrote;
Peter knows how he, Mary, John, the other disciples and Thomas all needed to see Jesus resurrected in order to believe. And Peter would have remembered Jesus’ words to Thomas about the blessedness of those who would believe in Him without seeing Him.
Maybe Peter was there overhearing Jesus’ prayer recorded in John 17 and remembered while writing to these believers how Jesus had prayed for those who would believe in Him not because they saw Him but because Jesus’ disciples would share the good news, the message of Jesus with them…
Because he writes;
You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. 9 The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:8-9 in NLT)
I detect a hint of marvelling in Peter. Knowing himself, knowing what people are like having seen the wrestle Thomas had, and then thinking of how those who have not seen but have believed in Jesus without ever having seen Him.
Fellow believers, even though we have not seen the resurrected Jesus, we have believed, we have trusted the truths we have read about Him in His word, we have believed & we rejoice with joy that is inexpressible.
How did this happen? I believe it happened because Jesus prayed for us (John 17:20) and because we were foreknown & elected by God before the foundation of the world was laid because of His love (1 Peter 1:1-2 & Ephesians 1:4-5).
You have believed in Jesus without seeing – you are truly blessed. You are an answer to Jesus’ prayer to the Father; you and your faith in Jesus are an exception to the way most people in the world think, and you are blessed.
And, one day, all of us who have believed will see Jesus as He is in all his glory (John 17:24).
“Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!”
But until then, be encouraged; “though you have not seen Him, you love Him.” Love Jesus & trust in Him with all your heart, rejoice in Him, delight in Him with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory because the reward for this believing without seeing is the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:9).
When Life Blurs Our Vision (Psalm 43)
Do you know the feeling – when life’s circumstances skew your perspective so much that you are no longer seeing correctly?
The Psalmist in Psalm 43 is overwhelmed & preoccupied by some hard times brought on by the actions of others. As a result, he begins with a request – he wants God to vindicate him, to defend & deliver him from unjust, ungodly, deceitful people.
His is the prayer of a person who feels powerless; they have reached the end of the limit of themselves, and so they cry out to God to do something on their behalf (43:1)
But that is not all. This poor ‘victim’ isn’t just feeling unjustly treated; he has another problem. He feels God has let him down like God, who ought to be his refuge, hasn’t been. Like God has dropped the ball and left him exposed to these ungodly people, and so his lament is actually against God (43:2)!
Effectively, he says to God, ‘You are my refuge, but You’ve been no refuge at all – you have left me exposed, You have rejected me; God!’ (paraphrase of 43:2a). His lament is about God.
How often don’t we do this? Life is hard; we face difficulties and trials, but before we know it, we are grumbling to God about God Himself.
The ‘victim narrative’ is not new; it is as old as the sun. The Psalmist is so self-centred and entitled at this point that he expresses disbelief that he has had to experience sadness because of the actions of others (43:2b).
Yet, God is so gracious! Although the Psalmist’s prayers begin with a request for protection & ejection from the circumstances he is enduring, and even though his prayer progresses to grumbling about God and accusing God of rejecting him & leaving him exposed so that he suffers at the hands of his enemies…God is quiet.
Thank you, LORD, for not responding too quickly to our rants – at times. Thank you, LORD, for your silence, for allowing us to blow off ungodly misdirected steam in prayer at times, and for just being silent.
Often, what we think our needs are and what is truly our most significant need are not the same. In his prayer process, eventually, the Psalmist realises that he has another need! More than vindication or protection from his enemies, he needs proximity to God (43:3).
Sometimes, trials and life circumstances can so occupy our attention that we drift from being close to God. Our vision is so full of our problems that we can’t see God anymore, and in those moments, we can find that we have drifted from His nearness. We can have drifted so far off course that we need help finding our way back into God’s presence.
So, the Psalmist’s prayer changes & then he prays;
Send your light and your truth; let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy mountain, to your dwelling place. Then I will come to the altar of God, to God, my greatest joy. I will praise you with the lyre, God, my God. – Psalm 43:3-4 (CSB)
The Psalmist’s greatest need & ours – is God, our greatest joy. We were made for proximity to God. God hard-wired this need and desire into the very fibre of our being. It is a creation ordinance.
Adam and Eve walked daily in the Garden with God before sin ruined that perfect relationship. But the wiring is still in us; it is how we were made. Our internal compass points to God; we were made to be close to God, to desire God’s presence, to dwell with God & to have God as our greatest joy (43:4).
Yet, sometimes life has skewed our vision, distracted us, and our troubles can preoccupy us that we need help to get back to nearness with God. And so, the Psalmist’s request effectively becomes, ‘Help me find my way back to you, God’ (43:3).
Rick Warren famously said, People close to God are not ‘lucky’, they are not ‘blessed’, and they do not have some spiritual gift of closeness bestowed on them. Instead, they have made a decision!
The Psalmist started with a felt need; he needed God’s protection & deliverance & he felt like God was not delivering, and yet his prayer transformed his perspective so that he began to see his greater need – closeness to God.
And so, the Psalmist asks for God’s help to guide him back to God’s presence. However, as Christ followers, we know the One who is the Way, the truth and life. We have believed in the One who is the only way into the Father’s presence.
And so, we have the confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. We know the way into God’s presence; we come by a new and living way opened up for us by the life, death & resurrection of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19-20).
More than this, we have Jesus, our great high priest, who is ever living to intercede for us in the throne room of God. Therefore, let’s draw near to God the Father with hearts full of confident faith because of our glorious Saviour, Jesus (Hebrews 10:21-22).
Our whole being is transformed by God’s presence so that depression, grumbling & despair are superseded by hope, praise, gratitude & faith (43:5).
Brother or sister, you and I have no greater need than proximity to God. And you do not need to ask God to send you light or truth to lead you into His presence – you have none other than Jesus Christ, the One who is the way, the truth, and the life eagerly waiting for you to come. Jesus is standing waiting for you to simply reach out to Him & if you do, if you invite Him into your presence, He will enter and dwell with you (Revelation 3:20).
So enter His presence, let us draw near to God; Jesus is with you now and omnipresent. Ask Him to make you aware of His presence with you right now – the very thing you need more than any other felt need.
Delight yourself in Jesus, God who has promised, ‘never will I leave you and never will I forsake you’ (Hebrews 13:5). So, because God is with you and for you, what can people do to you (Hebrews 13:6)?
Living as Exiles… (1 Peter 1:13-19)
“Therefore” (1:13)
Right thinking leads to right believing, which leads to right living. In his letter to the believers scattered throughout modern-day Turkey, the apostle Peter follows the pattern familiar to many apostolic letters.
The apostles knew they had received and been entrusted with good news, not good advice.
The gospel is not good advice but good news: “Advice is counsel about something that hasn’t happened yet, but you can do something about it. News is a report about something that has happened which you can’t do anything about because it has been done for you, and all you can do is to respond to it.” – Dr Martin Lloyd Jones.
The apostles had heard Jesus teach how the state of the heart mattered more than external appearances (Matthew 15:10-20 & 23:25) & they had experienced a personal heart transformation through following Jesus – which resulted in their changed lives & lifestyles.
And so, when wanting to encourage the believers in Jesus to live godly lives, the apostles habitually first laid a gospel foundation of truth, reminding believers of the good news (1:1-12) before giving them any imperatives regarding the Christian life. The apostles know that looking back at the gospel’s good news will motivate a gospel response in us!
Right thinking leads to right believing, which leads to right living.
So the apostle Peter has drawn our attention afresh to the wonders of the gospel past, present & future and then calls us to respond to this good news of the gospel by saying, “Therefore” or “consequently” (1:13) and what follows are some imperatives followed by a bookend which reminds us of the motivating power for all of them (1:18-21).
1. Prepare your minds for action & be sober-minded (1:13)
The apostle wants us as believers to keep ourselves in a state of mental readiness. The literal phrase translated as ‘prepare your minds for action (ESV) is ‘gird up the loins of your mind’!
This phrase doesn’t translate well into modern English; the image Peter is using is of a man picking up his garment and tucking it into his belt/girdle so that he is ready for action, prepared to respond or run.
Believers in Jesus need to be like this: alert, primed for action, and ready to respond. We are not to be indifferent or lazy. He then goes on to say that we are to be ‘sober-minded’ as believers. We are to be the opposite of a drunken person.
A drunken person is present but not truly alert; their reflexes are dulled, their vision is blurred, their perspective is unclear, and they are not entirely in control of their actions or thoughts & therefore, they are unguarded & are prone to be startled!
We are urged to be the opposite: sober-minded, alert, sharp, in control, and on our guard as believers in Jesus.
Too many bumble through life like a feather blown in the breeze, like a passenger, unsure what to expect. Hence, they are in a constant state of startled reaction rather than preparedness.
Peter is urging us to another way of living, clear thinking, having an appropriate expectation & therefore & being ready for action.
Being sober-minded & preparing your mind for action involves;
- Knowing who you are through faith in Jesus – a beloved elect chosen one of God (1 Peter 1:1)
- Locating yourself & also understanding the time in which you live as an exile (1 Peter 1:1) to have realistic expectations of this life & so that you can know how to respond.
- You have an adversary prowling, looking for opportunities to harm (1 Peter 5:8)
- You live in a fallen world tainted by sin in every way.
- You have a body impacted by the fall, prone to sickness, suffering & death.
- Positioning yourself to obey God as one of His children (1 Peter 1:14)
Such preparation will not only reduce surprise, confusion, questions & doubt but will help with realistic expectations and will help maintain a posture ready for quick obedience to the Father.
The apostle goes on to urge us…
2. Set your hope fully on the grace of God to come (1:13)
Having established the right mindset for the believer, we are then urged to set our hope fully on the grace of God that is to come. We are not to hedge our bets! We don’t trust in ourselves, our money or possessions, plus the grace of God for added insurance. Instead, we are instructed to fix our hope entirely & exclusively on ‘the grace of God to come’ (NLT).
But what is the ‘grace of God to come’? If we are to trust in it completely – what is it?
The ESV translation reads, “Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”. This grace is God’s unmerited favour (we don’t even bring it near – it is brought to us) that is already ours through faith in Jesus Christ and the grace to come that will be ‘brought to us’ at the moment of Christ’s return.
For the believer in Jesus, although we have already received grace & mercy from God in God’s saving us from our sins & God’s adopting us into His family – there is more to come! What is to come for us is so magnificent & glorious that the apostle Paul says that our present-day sufferings will be overwhelmed by it (Romans 8:18 & 2 Corinthians 4:17). It is so wonderful Peter tells us to set our hope completely on it.
Are you trusting Jesus fully for your eternal future? Eternity is not some religious opiate to make us feel better in the present; the reality of our eternal life in the new heaven and the new earth in proximity to God is so marvellous & real that it is worth trusting fully in it & ordering your life around it.
“Typically, we can be too vague about the subject of heaven, simply thinking of it as up there, out there, somewhere. A clearer appreciation of the tangible nature of our bodies and of where we are to live for eternity as well as what we might be doing should help us to become more excited about our future”- John Hosier.
How much do you think about Jesus’ return & life in the new heaven and the new earth? Can you say that you have fully fixed your hope on the gracious kindness of God that is yet to be revealed to us when Jesus returns?
Any failure to fully marvel at the reality of our life in eternity will impact your life now on this earth & cause you to be vulnerable to hopelessness or susceptible to the temptation to settle for that which is way less than what God wants to give you at the return of Jesus.
“Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn’t exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly existence. If we believe that lie, we’ll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we’ll set our minds on this life and not the next.” – R.Alcorn
3. Do not be conformed to old passions. Rather, be holy as He who called you is holy (1:14-16)
It is sickening to me how often misguided believers or even leaders baulk so quickly at imperatives like the ones in vs14-16 squealing ‘legalism’ as they do! The New Testament is clear that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.
However, having been saved by grace, we are then to live the rest of our lives as a response to the grace of God we received at salvation. We are to walk in a manner worthy of the calling we have received from God (Ephesians 4:1). God’s grace towards us is to have an effect – that we pursue the things of God more than anyone else (1 Corinthians 15:10).
And so it is appropriate for the apostles to give us all manner of commands & instructions on how we ought to live in all our conduct. There are things we ought to stop & others we ought to start doing. We are to live transformed lives because we have been saved. In this, we are not trying to be saved but living as those who are already saved.
The apostle commands believers in Jesus to no longer be conformed to the old passions or desires of our former way of living before we knew Jesus. We should not slip back into our old worldly ways of thinking and living. To do so is inappropriate for the Christ-follower since the Holy Spirit would never lead us into such sin but will only lead us into a new way of living that produces the fruit of the Spirit & exceeds even the law (Galatians 5:16-26).
Therefore, as we obey the Holy Spirit, we will end up becoming more and more like our Saviour (Romans 8:29).
Peter ends this section with two motivations for the imperatives: to prepare for action, be sober-minded, set our hope fully on what’s to come and not conform to the old passions of our former life…
Do all this with reverent fear throughout your time of exile
Sin & ungodliness flourish in the absence of a correct view of God. This is the whole sad storyline of Romans 1:18-32. The opposite is also true – a correct view of God as holy and righteous has a preservative effect on us.
We know this from life experience, right? Kids who receive an instruction to not take or touch something in the presence of the parent who gave the instruction are suddenly way more likely to reach out and touch or take that banned thing if their parent leaves the room…
So, the apostle Peter urges us to live our lives during this time of exile with a reverent fear for God since he knows that awareness of God will help us not to conform to the old ways of our former life.
How can you grow in your constant awareness of a proper reverence for God?
Do all this because you know who saved you & what it cost!
The final motivation in the passage is the most positive and powerful one of all. The whole Christian life is a response to the grace of God in His giving you Jesus. We are to prepare our minds for action, be sober-minded, set our hope fully on what’s to come and not conform to the old passions of our former life but rather to be holy like our Father is holy all because Jesus!
We are to live this way because we know that we were saved from the futile ways & traditions of our families passed down to us not with something small or insignificant but by the precious blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:19)!
When we see the extent to which Jesus went to save us & when we see how much it cost Jesus to save us, the only appropriate response is to want to live your whole life as a love response to Jesus!
Love is the most powerful motivator in the world. Think of all the crazy & remarkable things that have been done inspired by love. If we see how much it cost Jesus and how much He loved us to ransom us from our futile ways before we were saved, we will respond by loving Him back and wanting to please Him with our whole lives.
There is no more powerful motivation for godliness than seeing what our Saviour did for us & knowing what it cost Him. We can never pay Him back, but we can respond by giving our every waking moment to him in loving, willing obedience – because He first loved us.
Silent Saviour (Psalm 39)
Don’t just read the Bible; rather, let it search you & let God speak to you through it. Scripture came alive to me today as I meditated on Psalm 39.
What started as another Psalm of David’s lamenting injustice & detailing his struggle to remain quiet & at peace in his heart while feeling aggrieved by the actions of others (39:1-3)…Suddenly, it opened into a Psalm that helped me worship my Saviour today with a new light!
I was identifying with David on the struggle of holding your tongue in the presence of injustice & how restraining the tongue can lead to another fire – an internal one which ended up in hot words anyway… (39:1-3)
But then I was drawn to the phrase, “I was mute and silent; I held my peace…” And it struck me that Isaiah had prophesied about Jesus;
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)
The apostle Peter, who was an eyewitness of Jesus’ various trials and his death on the cross, wrote these words;
When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:23-24)
Although David struggled in the presence of evil & injustice, and I like him too. My Saviour Jesus kept His peace when oppressed; he didn’t fight back but was silent and didn’t insult back when He was unjustly accused, abused and insulted.
And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you. (Psalm 39:7 in NLT)
Jesus Christ is our only hope, so
- We put our hope in the ONE (vs7) who didn’t speak when falsely accused! (vs1-3)
- We put our hope in the ONE (vs7) who, unlike us (vs4-6), is eternal, the unending ONE who can therefore save us completely (Hebrews 7:25).
- We put our hope in the ONE who alone can deliver us from all our transgressions BECAUSE He didn’t ask the Father to deliver Him when He bore our transgressions (vs8).
- We put our hope in the ONE who didn’t open His mouth to ask the Father to rescue Him from the cross so He could rescue us (vs9)!
- We put our hope in the ONE who endured the wrath of God against sin, who didn’t ask the Father to remove His stroke from him so that we would never receive the stroke of God’s wrath against our sin (vs9-10).
Jesus, thank You for not asking the Father to deliver You from the sin that was on You SO THAT You could deliver us, thank You for not opening Your mouth to ask the Father to rescue You SO THAT You could rescue us, and thank You for not asking the Father to stop the His punishment of You for our sin SO THAT You could be the propitiating sacrifice that took away the Holy Father’s wrath, SO THAT we would never have to face His wrath but only receive His loving embrace!
We are in awe of You, Jesus; we worship You & praise You for who You are & for what You have done in saving us.
Solace in Suffering
1 Peter 1:6-12
Rather suddenly, Peter transitions from the praise for our salvation (vs3-6a) to the complex reality of life in this age – an age filled with grief & struggle because of all types of trials. This is one of the primary purposes of his letter – to help believers know how to follow Jesus in the presence of suffering.
Peter isn’t surprised that the believers are suffering; he doesn’t even pray that they be ejected from such suffering but gives them a perspective on suffering that will fortify them and us.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:6-9)
‘In this you rejoice’ – believers in Jesus can & should rejoice even in the presence of suffering (1:6a) because they know that they have been born again through faith in Jesus into a living hope & into an inheritance that is kept in heaven for them, an inheritance that God will keep them for (1:3-5). We can & should rejoice in the present because of what Jesus has done & will still do in saving us.
Peter says that we rejoice in this great salvation despite various trials because we know some things. This present experience of suffering we go through in this life;
- It is short when compared to eternity (1:6)
- Will pass & be surpassed by the joy & glory of eternity (1:6&8 & also Romans 8:18)
- Has purpose – it tests & proves our faith as genuine (1:7)
- Reveals the true value of our faith in God (1:7)
- Will result in praise, glory & honour for Jesus (1:7)
- Heightens our love for Jesus (1:8)
- Will lead to the end goal of our faith, our complete salvation (1:9)
Knowing that suffering is expected, that suffering will end. Knowing that it will be overtaken, surpassed by inexpressible joy & glory. Knowing that suffering has a purpose – purifying our faith, which is more precious than gold. Knowing that our endurance in suffering will ultimately result in us loving Jesus more & will lead to Jesus being glorified – doesn’t reduce our suffering or change the reality of our suffering. Still, it does transform our perspective & encourage us in it.
Trials should not surprise us, or cause us to doubt God’s faithfulness. Rather, we should actually be glad for them. God sends trials to strengthen our trust in him so that our faith will not fail. Our trials keep us trusting; they burn away our self-confidence and drive us to our Saviour. The fires of affliction or persecution will not reduce our faith to ashes. Fire does not destroy gold: it only removes combustible impurities. – Edmund Clowney
What challenges are you facing right now that appear overwhelming or unending?
They will pass. They will be overtaken & surpassed by the joy & glory of your eternal salvation. Even if you can’t understand how right now, within the providential love of God, even these challenges have a purpose (Ephesians 1:11). They help you and me to trust Jesus more & in time to come, we will value that faith & belief in Jesus more than anything in this world.
These challenges will provide us with more reasons to worship & praise our Saviour who promised never to leave us nor forsake us & the One who has promised to sustain us to the very end (1 Corinthians 1:8-9) & to keep us from stumbling and present us blameless before the throne with great joy (Jude 24). Brother or sister, our great Saviour is ever living to intercede for us & He will save us completely (Hebrews 7:25).
Peter loved Jesus & Peter knew that Jesus loved him. Peter can write about enduring various trials because he has been through them. Peter had regrets; he had stumbled in the face of some trials (when he denied Jesus), yet through it, Jesus had loved Peter with an overwhelming, unwavering love that made Peter love Jesus even more.
So now Peter thinks of these believers who are in trials & he knows that Jesus loves them too & knows that they already love Jesus even though they haven’t seen Jesus in the flesh as he did. Peter knows their love will only grow as they experience more and more of Jesus’ great love for them.
Jesus loves you with a love that is inexpressible, inexhaustible, unfading. Whatever you are going through cannot remove you from His love for you; it is not purposeless but will test your faith & heighten your love for Jesus & ultimately give you more reasons to praise Jesus.
My prayer is that today, in whatever you face, you would know Jesus’ love poured into your heart by the Spirit (Romans 5:4) & that you would be filled with the knowledge of His will & with spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you could respond to these circumstances in a manner that’s pleasing to God & worthy of God so that you will bear much fruit because of your endurance with joy in this season of suffering and that because of it you would increase in your knowledge of God and love for God (Colossians 1:9-12).
Blessed Assurance
1 Peter 1:3-9
Do you need encouragement today? Does your followership of Jesus sometimes feel like a spiritual roller coaster ride? Do you feel unsure & anxious as to whether you will be able to keep going as a believer in Jesus Christ? Have you messed up so monumentally that sometimes you wonder whether you really are saved? Have you faced such trials that you have concerns about whether your faith will make it to the end?
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9)
Your Father in heaven, your magnificent Saviour & your Helper, the Holy Spirit, want to assure you today. All the future benefits of your salvation that still await you – your inheritance as a believer in Jesus Christ – are being kept in heaven for you (1 Peter 1:4).
What excellent assurance, knowing that all that has been promised to us (eternal life with God, in a glorified body fit for eternity and a future with no more sin, tears, mourning, suffering or death) is being kept for us & that it cannot perish, be defiled or fade away.
But it would be a very limited encouragement or assurance to know that this inheritance cannot perish, be defiled or fade if we didn’t know something else. All the future benefits of salvation would mean nothing to us if we didn’t also know that not only is being kept in heaven for us by God but that we also are being kept for it by God’s power (1 Peter 1:5)!
But praise God that He wants us to know that we know that not only are we saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, but that we will be kept secure in that salvation to the very end by God’s grace & power alone! Our salvation from start to finish is wholly a work of God; because of that, we can rest secure with full & blessed assurance.
Peter describes here how not only is our inheritance being kept for us, but we too are ‘being guarded’ by God’s power (1 Peter 1:5) through our faith in Jesus. We can be assured that we will enter our inheritance because it is not up to us to ensure we make it to the end, but we are being guarded/protected/kept by God’s power.
Your Saviour, Jesus, the One who saved you, is the One who will sustain your faith to the very end so that you can know that you will stand guiltless on the day He returns.
Our assurance that we will persevere is that Jesus is sustaining us & that God is faithful to do what He said He would do (1 Corinthians 1:8-9).
Our assurance that we will persevere until the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ is that we are being guarded by God’s power (1 Peter 1:5) & sustained by our Saviour (1 Corinthians 1:8-9).
Our assurance is that we are His beloved sheep to whom He has already given eternal life, those whom Jesus said will never perish but will have eternal life (John 3:16) & that no one will ever be able to snatch us from His or the Father’s hands so we can be assured & rest safe & secure in His loving protection & care for us (John 10:27-30).
Our assurance is that no one & nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39).
Why would you need to be anxious or lacking assurance? Our assurance is not anchored in ourselves! It is not anchored in our ability to keep ourselves together.
Our assurance is anchored in the fact that we are being kept, guarded, protected, and sustained by no one less than God Himself! And because it is God who is keeping us for the incredible future that is ours through faith in Jesus, we can be assured & He alone is praised because we didn’t sustain our faith, but we were sustained by God’s grace & love alone.
So we can rest assured with a blessed assurance, and we can sing;
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word, my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.
- John Newton 1779
The Best is Yet to Be
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9)
Are you in a stage of life where you feel like the wind is not at your back but in your face? Likewise, Peter was writing to these believers who had been grieved by many varied trials (vs6).
However, as believers, what God has done for us in the past in saving us & what we know about the future fortifies us for the present-day trials we face. After all, the truest thing about us is not what has been done to us, what we have done or even what we feel – but what Christ has done for us! (See David Lomas – The Truest Thing about You).
So, at the start of his letter, the apostle Peter lifts the eyes of the believers off the trials they are experiencing by reminding them of the wonders of salvation.
He reminds them that because of God’s great mercy, believers in Jesus are liberated from their sin and its consequences and are born again into a living hope in Christ. A hope that isn’t rooted in our moral performance but in God’s great mercy expressed to us in giving us Jesus, our living hope (vs3).
More than that, Peter says that the best is yet to come. Believers often consider what they have been saved from, but in verses 4-6, Peter draws our attention to what is still before the believer in Jesus. We are born again into an ‘inheritance’ that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading that God is keeping for us in heaven.
But what is this inheritance Peter refers to? It is so remarkable that it is worthy of rejoicing despite the many varied trials these believers live through (vs6).
An inheritance is something that has been assigned to you but which you do not yet possess wholly. It is yours & yet it is still to be enjoyed more fully. Peter is referring to all that is ours as believers in Jesus in the age to come, things that are being kept in heaven for us by God (vs4) & an inheritance which we too are being kept for by God (vs5)!
Peter’s language evokes images of God’s people ever since God’s promise to Abraham (Genesis 15:7) & Moses (Exodus 3:16-17) about the Promised Land, Israel’s inheritance. They had an inheritance promised to them; it was theirs & yet many never entered it because of their sin.
That inheritance of the Promised Land was perishable (in that it could be lost as many never entered it), it was defiled by ungodly inhabitants and defiled by sin & it faded through the conquest of marauding armies as God’s people were taken off into exile by people like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks & the Roman Empire…
But the inheritance Peter is contrasting with that sad history of regret & loss is imperishable, undefiled, unfading & is being kept in heaven for the believer in Jesus! This is such good news & so certain – that believers can rejoice despite many varied trials in this life.
Jesus’ resurrection secured for the believer in Jesus;
- An inheritance that is not some wishful thinking or vain hope but an utter certainty so certain & real that it is powerful enough to transform our experience of trials in the present.
- An indestructible inheritance & one which we can’t defile! This is excellent news because the storyline of the Bible ever since Adam and Eve is that we tend to mess up what God intended for our good. We cannot mess up our eternal inheritance because we didn’t earn it but received it by faith in Jesus! It was given to us through the great mercy of God & not as a response to our good behaviour.
- An inheritance that will not fade over time but is forever & ever. I love how Paul says it will take forever for God to show us the immeasurable richness of His gracious kindness in giving us Jesus (Ephesians 2:7).
- An inheritance that is ultimately not things we will receive but an unhindered relationship with God that we will delight in forever. Eternal life is knowing God & rejoicing in dwelling with Him in the new heaven & the new earth (John 17:3 & Revelation 21:4-5).
- An inheritance that is totally secure, one that nothing can separate us from. It is kept in heaven for us by God & we are guarded by God’s power so that we enter into it (vs5-6).
“Heaven will be knowing and seeing God. Every other joy will be derivative flowing from the fountain of our relationship with God.” – R. Alcorn.
In such things, we rejoice (vs6) even though in this life, we face many trials & afflictions. We know that when they are compared with our inheritance to come & the glory of eternal life that will be revealed to us, these present trials will be seen for what they truly are – momentary & light when compared to the eternal weight of glory that is our inheritance to come (2 Corinthians 4:17).
And so we can rejoice, we can have hope despite dark days. We believe in Jesus, and so we can rejoice with a joy that is unmatched and inexpressible & filled with glory (vs8) because of all that is still to come for those who have believed in Jesus – the salvation of our souls which is something more majestic & remarkable that any of us could ever imagine (vs9).
So be encouraged! If you have believed in Jesus, you have been born again into a living hope & into a future inheritance that ought to lift your eyes from the present challenges & instil in you an indestructible hope, joy & excitement of all that is to come for you. So, hold on, look to Jesus your Saviour, lean on Him, lean into the Help of the Holy Spirit & know – the best is yet to be!
Fret not!
1 Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! 2 For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. 3 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. 4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. 6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. 7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! 8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. 9 For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. (Psalm 37:1-9)
Don’t you love how if we just read Scripture daily, God uses what we read to speak to what we need? The other day, as I opened up to Psalm 37, the phrase “fret not yourself” (37:1) held my attention.
The Hebrew word chârâh (translated as ‘fret’ in the ESV) means to heat up, be agitated, and burst out in rage with displeasure, anger or grief. To fret is a negative, ungodly response to circumstances or people that leads only to trouble, evil or sin (Psalm 37:8).
Scripture warns us against fretting three times in Psalm 37;
- ‘Fret not yourself because of evildoers’ (37:1)
- ‘Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices’ (37:7)
- ‘Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil’ (37:8)
Like a laser-guided missile, this Scripture went right into my heart & exposed my ungodly propensity to fretting! I tend to allow myself to get agitated about people who do wrong to me or feel hot displeasure when there are injustices.
Yet, this Scripture is clear: we are not to fret since it leads only to trouble, evil & even sin.
Allowing ourselves to fret causes us to be troubled and agitated. We are not at peace & in that state of mind when we are prone to causing trouble with others around us or those we are fretting about.
We can feel so justified in our hot displeasure because of the wrong we feel has been committed or because of the sense of injustice that lingers.
However, Scripture says that fretting has no positive godly outcome. It doesn’t lead to peace internally or relationally & it doesn’t lead to godly actions. Therefore, fretting is to be avoided & replaced by other responses. In the words of Dallas Willard;
“It is better to be Christlike than right.” – Dallas Willard.
Oh, how careful we need to be when we are right about some perceived wrong that has been committed because it is all too easy to end up being wrong even when you are right! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil (37:8).
So, how does one avoid fretting? Especially if you are prone to becoming hot with agitation, frustration & displeasure easily – in situations of wrong or injustice committed against you?
The first step is to acknowledge that any fretting/agitation is not solely the result of what the other person did or some life circumstance bugging you. Biblical counselling teaches us that;
HEAT + HEART = RESPONSE
Therefore, when we respond to circumstances (heat) in our lives by fretting, that response does not result from the circumstances or the other person alone. Instead, our response is the combination of what the other person has done PLUS the state of our hearts.
Acknowledging this is vital if we are to obey the instruction of Psalm 37: not to fret. If we do not see our own hearts’ contribution to the problem of fretting, we will not be able to change the response we are having to heat in our lives.
We cannot usually control the heat we experience, either from life’s circumstances or what people do or say. However, we can tend to the state of our hearts; this will transform our possible response to the heat we experience.
So, how can we tend to the state of our hearts? That’s a vital question and the topic of another blog post from another day – 2words.co/2023/12/04/an-inappropriate-psalm/ & a topic which deserves our full attention (Proverbs 4:23). But a simple diagram used in Biblical Counselling may spark thoughtful reflection on the two response routes to any heat in our lives – one which produces Godly fruit & one which produces only sinful thorns… (Jubilee Community Church – Biblical Counselling Course)
Helpfully, though, Psalm 37 doesn’t just point out what we are not meant to do! Rather, it overflows with biblical wisdom regarding how not to fret. This is typical of biblical wisdom; godly living is not just the absence of one thing but the replacement of one response with other godly responses;
- ‘Trust in the Lord, and do good’ (37:3)
- ‘Commit your way to the LORD, trust in Him, and He will act (37:5)
- ‘Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him (37:7)
- ‘Refrain from anger, forsake wrath’ (37:8)
- ‘Wait for the LORD…and keep His way’ (37:9 & 34)
- ‘Turn away from evil and do good’ (37:27)
We are to replace agitation with trust. Trusting God will enable us to do good to others rather than to repay evil with evil. We are to focus on doing good, not dwelling on the evil actions of others but making sure we are being good and godly.
We are to commit our life’s way to the LORD; we are not at the mercy of sinful people; we are in the LORD’s hands & He will act for us & protect us. So, rather than being agitated by people or circumstances, we can be still before our King; we can wait patiently for Him to act rather than fret about situations we have no control over.
We are to refrain from anger & forsake wrath. So when we feel the heat rising in our hearts & heads, we do not have to give in to those reactions, but we are to control them. Our feelings & thoughts are not our master but are to be under our control as believers in Jesus. I am always encouraged that the Bible will never command us to do things we cannot do – so we are responsible for refraining & forsaking anger & wrath with the help of the Holy Spirit.
We are not to fret when life circumstances feel like they are beyond our power to control; we are to express our trust in our Father by waiting, and while we wait, we are to keep His ways, not our sinful ones.
We are to actively turn away from evil by doing good. Fretting/agitation leads only to evil (37:8); we must proactively turn away from sin. If we aren’t intentional & proactive, we will tend towards fretting & evil; we need to choose to replace fretting actively & the evil it leads to with doing good.
Thank you, LORD, for inspiring David to write these words. LORD, though my heart & head are prone to wander into fretting, I pray for heart change in me so that I will respond more like You want me to when the heat of life comes. Thank you for these words of wisdom, things I can turn to as I turn from fretting over the evil of life circumstances not in my control.
“Here’s my heart, oh take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.” – Robert Robinson.
Born into a living hope!
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3)
Having greeted the recipients of his letter, believers throughout modern-day Turkey. Peter bursts into praise to the Father in heaven for His great mercy, which caused those who believed in Jesus to be ‘born again’ (1 Peter 1:3).
There was a day when every one of us had come into this world with a first gasp of oxygen filling our lungs. But Peter celebrates another birth here – the second birth of every believer in Jesus.
That being ‘born again’ that Jesus first spoke of to Nicodemus (John 3:3-7) & which John wrote of in his gospel when he said, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).
When a baby is born, they are hopefully greeted with eager expectation into a web of loving relationships & receive a birth name & surname that anchors their identity & belonging in the world.
Through this second birth, we too are supernaturally welcomed eternally into a new identity & sense of belonging as we are welcomed into a loving relationship with God, and all those who like us have been welcomed into His worldwide family through faith in Jesus (1 John 3:1).
In our text, Peter draws our attention to another thing – we are born again into a living hope. Peter’s lived experience fills this phrase, ‘a living hope’ with meaning.
The Old Testament prophets had prophesied in the hope of the Messiah to come. Simeon, when He saw Him as a baby, sang in hope;
“…my eyes have seen your salvation 31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:30-32)
Thirty years later, Peter found Him, the One Simeon had sung a Messianic hope over! And when He saw Jesus, he left all he knew to follow Jesus (Luke 5:11). Peter’s hope that Jesus indeed was the Messiah must have grown as he spent time with Jesus, talking along the road, listening to every sermon, watching every interaction with people & with each miracle he witnessed Jesus perform.
Peter’s conviction & hope regarding Jesus indeed peaked just after seeing Jesus transfigured before his very eyes on the mountaintop, so much so that Peter proclaimed that Jesus was the anointed “Christ of God” (Luke 9:20).
But Peter’s hope must have been severely dented when soldiers whisked Jesus away to face charges of blasphemy before the High Priest & the Council. And, as he watched from a distance & denied three times the One he had fixed his hope to – Peter must have felt devastated as his hope was dashed.
Peter was there when his hope died & cried out, “It is finished” (John 19:30). What depths of despair, hope lost.
But! Just a few days later, when Mary Magdalene came running to Peter saying that Jesus was not in the tomb, Peter must have had millions of thoughts rushing through his mind… Was his body stolen? By whom? Why? Or, was Jesus actually alive like He said He would be (Luke 9:22)?
Hope is rising again amidst the questions. Then later, Mary returned saying, “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18), and hope rose even more despite the questions. But when Jesus walked into the upper room, and the risen Lord Jesus came and stood among the disciples, I can only imagine how Peter’s heart leapt with hope!
Now writing to the believers in Asia, Peter writes;
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3)
He had seen the resurrected Jesus in the flesh, and that first encounter was branded into his mind forever. Peter’s hope, our hope, was a person – Jesus Christ the One who was dead, but He is alive forevermore.
So, Jesus is our living hope. And He ever lives now to intercede for us & to act as our one Mediator for us before the Father in Heaven (1 Timothy 2:5).
Isn’t it incredible & reassuring that our Messiah isn’t just an idea, or some dead person or even worse some mythological figure of history, but living & active person who loves us. Someone we can cry out to, pour out our hearts to, someone we can love and be loved by.
In another sense, the phrase ‘a living hope’ represents the hope in Peter’s heart and ours that Jesus will return for us at the end of this age to take us to be with Him in heaven & the new earth, forever ushering in a new and everlasting era. A day when we will receive glorified bodies fit for eternity & all of creation will be renewed (Revelation 21:5). Jesus is our & all creation’s living hope!
Lastly, Jesus is our living hope because His resurrection life is the guarantee both of our life now as believers (Galatians 2:20) & our resurrection life to come (1 Corinthians 15:12-58).
“Our hope is anchored in the past: Jesus rose! Our hope remains in the present: Jesus lives! Our hope is completed in the future: Jesus is coming!” – Edmund Clowney.
Thank you Jesus for being our living hope, a hope that fills the present with meaning & significance and fills the future with joyful expectation.
A new look at an old Psalm
Psalm 36
I love how God uses Scripture to speak words in season. I have always loved Psalm 36 for the outburst of praise from vs5-10, but this morning, my attention was drawn to the footnote in the ESV, which opened up a new way of seeing this Psalm.
The footnote in the ESV says that in most of the Hebrew manuscripts in verse 1, David is speaking in the first person of himself, not some wicked person, which dramatically changes the Psalm!
Do you ever feel disappointed in how you have been responding to the circumstances of your life?
I have had a week like that! Looking back, I have needed to repent for how my heart & head responded to the circumstances I needed to walk through.
So this morning, that little footnote unlocked a whole new reflection on this Psalm, and I now identify profoundly with David & the first four verses of his Psalm.
David writes of himself;
1 Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes. 2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. (Psalm 36:1-2)
Sin whispers to us deep down in our hearts. Just like the serpent came to Adam and Eve whispering wicked things, planting seeds of deception, rebellion & mistrust in God, so too, our enemy still does the same to us (36:1).
If we don’t resist those insidious evil suggestions deep in our hearts, we can act in ways that show no reverent fear for God as we have allowed ourselves to get blinded by our self-speak until we justify all manner of thoughts & actions.
Suppose we don’t resist those evil thoughts. In that case, we quickly find our self-justifying pride rising, causing us to flatter ourselves in our own eyes, causing us to feel justified in our sinful reactions to our circumstances (36:2).
Such self-flattery (pride) spreads, blinding us to our sin & wrongdoing, and therefore keeps us from the one thing that will rectify the path we have started walking down – repentance. (36:2) You cannot repent of what you have not hated, and you cannot hate your sin if you are blinded to it still (36:2).
You cannot repent of what you have not hated, and you cannot hate what you have not seen.
Is there anything more dangerous than spiritual blindness? When we are spiritually blind due to our prideful self-flattery, we are being kept from doing the one thing we most desperately need – to repent.
3 The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit; he has ceased to act wisely and do good. 4 He plots trouble while on his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he does not reject evil. (Psalm 36:3-4)
When we are in this state, our speech sullies. We speak like a brutish beast (Psalm 73:22) both before God & others, uttering words that bring ruin rather than life (36:3).
In this unhinged state, we cease to act wisely and are vulnerable to ungodliness & evil actions that we will regret.
It is easier to interpret Psalm 36:1-4 as a reflection on the inner workings of evil people. But I don’t believe that is what David was doing. I think he is reflecting on how prone to sin & evil he is, which serves as the dark backdrop for verses 5-10 that makes them even more radiant.
5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. 6 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord. 7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. 9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light. 10 Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright of heart! (Psalm 36:5-10)
In light of the internal wrestle of our hearts, God’s love is even more remarkable!
Our God’s love is not fickle but steadfast. It is on a magnitude that so overwhelms our sinfulness (36:5). God’s righteousness is as unchanging as the mountains, His judgements & salvation as deep as the ocean depths (36:6).
There is nothing like God’s love that is so relentless & immutable, even when we are stained with sin. God alone is a safe place for the weak & sinful like you and I (36:7).
In God’s presence, we find safety, mercy, grace & undeserved abundant blessing. God’s treatment of us is a fountain of new life that rescues us from the paths we went down when we walked in our sin (36:8-9).
God gives us a new way of seeing; God removes our blindness so that we are delivered from our spiritual blindness so that we can see again: “In your light do we see light” (36:9).
Jesus, thank you for your steadfast love towards all those who know You & have trusted in You. Thank You for the gifts of forgiveness & righteousness found only in You (36:10).
Lord Jesus, keep us from evil & lead us not into temptation, Lord (36:11-12 & Matthew 6:13). Thank you, Lord, for shining your light and exposing the depths of our hearts so that we can repent & receive your forgiveness, mercy & grace. Amen.
Mercy: moves towards need.
1 Peter 1:3-5
John Piper has said that God’s glory is the beauty of the whole panorama of God’s perfections. We delight, therefore, in the fullness of who God is. We ought to be careful of having favourite attributes of God, lest we become guilty of fashioning a ‘god’ suitable to our preferences like the idol makers Isaiah admonished.
And yet, an attribute of God’s character & being that has become especially dear to me is the mercy of God. Until recently, I had a feeble understanding of God’s mercy. I had always understood mercy as being contrasted to grace. Grace was getting what I didn’t deserve, and mercy was not getting what I did deserve. Mercy was not receiving the punishment or wrath of God that I deserved – and this is all true.
However, what was missing for me was that mercy is drawn towards weakness & helplessness, not repulsed by it. God, in His great mercy, saw me in my sin-soaked helpless state and moved towards me, not away from me. Oh, the immeasurable richness of His kindness in coming towards me in the incarnation – the great mercy of God in Jesus Christ, my Messiah!
This insight that mercy’s trajectory is towards need & helplessness has opened my eyes to portions of Scripture that reveal some of the motives behind God’s saving work. As I meditate on Peter’s outburst of praise & thanks to God again this morning, I see God’s abundant mercy as the deep well from which God’s plan of salvation flowed.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)
The apostle Paul similarly attributes God’s work of salvation to God’s mercy;
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:1-5)
The spring from which salvation flowed was God’s mercy. We were dead, helpless, sinful, deserving of God’s wrath, BUT GOD being rich in mercy, because of His great mercy, moved towards us, not away from us, sent Jesus Christ the Son towards us to save us and cause us to be born again into a living hope through His life, death & resurrection – hallelujah.
The whole incarnation is God’s mercy being physically demonstrated in Jesus. If God was holy, righteous & just but not merciful, God would have recoiled from our sins & shame pitied our hopelessness. But our God is the same God who, when Moses asked God to show him His glory, revealed Himself to Moses as;
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6)
God revealed His glory as being shown in His mercy & grace. God’s glory is that despite being the Holy One, He is moved to action in the presence of need by His mercy – which is the fountainhead of our salvation.
Thinking about salvation, Peter can not help but consider again that the source of the things that are given to us in salvation (our living hope & our eternal inheritance) have been given to us because of the way God has responded to our need – with His great mercy.
Stop for a moment and thank God for His mercy. Thank Him that He moved towards your sin, your mess & your helplessness – in sending you Jesus. Your Saviour was moved with such compassion; He didn’t just reach out His hand but gave His whole life for you because of His great mercy.
Jesus, thank you for moving towards my sin by taking on flesh & becoming like me so that you could save me from yourself by giving yourself as my propitiatory sacrifice so that I could be forgiven.
Jesus, thank you for moving towards my weakness by sending me the Holy Spirit as my Helper for all of life, not just to come and help me but to dwell within me forever.
Jesus, thank you for moving towards my insecurity & anxiety with your assuring steadfast love & faithfulness & your promises of proximity.
Jesus, thank you for moving towards my doubt, fear & unbelief with continual revelations & experiences of your trustworthiness & your undeniable love and attention to the slightest needs.
Jesus, thank you for moving towards my lack of wisdom or resources in giving me the Holy Spirit & your Scriptures, which give me everything I need for life and godliness.
Jesus, thank you for never moving away from me but because of your great mercy always moving towards me and my need & frailty – how I love your mercy, LORD. Make me more like You as I see need & brokenness around me. Amen.
An Inappropriate Psalm?
Psalm 35
The Church that I served as an elder for the last 20 years (www.recroadchurch.co.za) have been systematically reading the Bible together as a community of faith using a Bible Reading Plan that often included a Psalm for every day in addition to whatever book it was that we were reading.
Reading through some of David’s Psalms of lament, the same conversation would often arise on the WhatsApp group dedicated to sharing what God had been saying & or asking questions of the text for the day’s readings; “But isn’t it wrong to think or pray or speak like this?” & “Didn’t Jesus teach us to love our enemies?”
As I read David’s Psalm 35 today, I was reminded of such questions. David wrote;
“Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me!” (Psalm 35:1)
This is a good prayer, surely? Isn’t it better to ask God to fight for you, to contend for you, than for you to contend & fight with people you disagree with or feel wronged by?
I can empathise with David; he expresses feelings or thoughts I think we can identify with. Who can’t relate to the desire to have those who plot or scheme against or in opposition to you frustrated as their plans come to nothing or are frustrated?
Let them be turned back and disappointed who devise evil against me! (Psalm 35:4)
They repay me evil for good; my soul is bereft. (Psalm 35:12)
How long, O Lord, will you look on? (Psalm 35:17)
You have seen, O Lord; be not silent! O Lord, be not far from me! Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication, for my cause, my God and my Lord! (Psalm 35:22-23)
None of these things is malicious; instead, in lines like these, we see ourselves; they encapsulate our thoughts & express our feelings in times of relational conflict or when we encounter opposition.
However, David also prays for things like;
Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them! (Psalm 35:6)
Let destruction come upon him when he does not know it! And let the net that he hid ensnare him; let him fall into it—to his destruction! (Psalm 35:8)
Let them be put to shame and disappointed altogether who rejoice at my calamity! Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves against me! (Psalm 35:26)
The Anglican Church got it right in 1563, I believe, when they resolved;
The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of holy writ, yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the same… (The Thirty-Nine Articles, 1563 of The Church of England)
So, how do we reconcile much of David’s Psalm with Jesus’ teachings (Matthew 5:44)?
One solution (all too common) is to write off sections of Scripture as no longer having relevance or claim other passages supersede them. However, this is not a wise or biblical approach to interpreting Scripture.
It is not wise because then you become the authority over the canon of Scripture as you approve & disapprove portions of it! More than that, it is unbiblical because Scripture itself declares that.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
So, what do we do with David’s seemingly inappropriate thoughts/prayers?
I believe the key is in understanding biblical lament and its vital role in spiritual heart health. David is lamenting; he is speaking to God, pouring out his heart to God, his raw thoughts and emotions concerning those against him.
This is healthy. This is part of the journey towards heart health.
I didn’t always get this. I always knew that we are compelled by Scripture to forgive so that we will not be like the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35), that we are to forgive “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13). I knew that we are to “love our enemies” (Matthew 5:44), I knew that God says; “vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19).
And so, I would, out of discipline, shut down any feelings or thoughts against those I was struggling with & would panel beat my heart & head into forgiving those who I felt had wronged me & begin to pray for their blessing.
But this approach left me with what one might call ‘wounds of the heart’ or bruising, which didn’t heal quickly. Yes, I had forgiven the other person/people, but something didn’t feel right. It was like there were unresolved hurts that could be triggered easily by a memory or a repeated situation.
And therein lies the danger! The stakes are high because if we fail to deal with the heart deposits we accumulate over time, we are in danger of poor heart health & a whole variety of sins.
All the often hidden sins of anger, resentment, bitterness, doubt & unbelief grow in the soil of unprocessed hurt, frustration & unforgiveness.
One of the keys to greater heart health was a deeper understanding of lament & nothing has helped me more than Alan Frow’s teaching on Soul Care.
Lament is not a destination, but it is a layover to the destination of joy. If we don’t lament, we can get locked in the past. – Alan Frow
Alan teaches how there are four steps (Psalms for a Saturated Soul – Alan Frow) to a biblical process of lament. (Alan uses the word ‘soul’ in each of these steps; I prefer ‘heart’);
- Step 1: Pour out your HEART to God (Lament)
- Step 2: Listen to your HEART emotions & repent or forgive
- Step 3: Speak to your HEART the truths of Scripture
- Step 4: Refresh your HEART in God
We have come full circle back to David & Psalm 35 & interpreted it in such a way that it is not repugnant to Jesus’ teaching & other New Testament teachings on loving our enemies or forgiveness.
Psalm 35 is one of the 65 Psalms of lament. And many of them have portions that are not pretty and can even feel inappropriate! But they are essential. They are God’s gift to us. I often ask my Father, ‘Why did you include this in your Scripture?’ I find this way of approaching what at first can seem inappropriate or hard to understand helpful, causing me to press in rather than check out.
Psalm 35 is step one of Alan’s suggested approach to heart health. Psalm 35 is the unfiltered, raw expression of the thoughts & feelings we have when in times of relational conflict or when we face opposition.
What is vital is that God is the appropriate audience for lament, not a social media status or post & also not conversations with our friends. Lament directed towards God is healthy and will not result in gossip or slander but will lead to heart health. So, learn to process complex life events & experiences by pouring out your heart to God in lament as David does in Psalm 35. You can even use a Psalm like this to help you express your heart to God.
But remember, don’t stay there! Lament is not a destination but a layover to the destination of joy; it is an essential part of the inward heart journey so that we don’t just accumulate heart wounds, but it is to be followed by the other three steps…
- Step 2: Listen to your HEART emotions & repent or forgive
- Step 3: Speak to your HEART the truths of Scripture
- Step 4: Refresh your HEART in God
In conclusion, armed with this more profound understanding of the importance of lament & the steps to heart health (DM me for a PDF with some expanded teaching on this topic), Psalms like Psalm 35 are not questionable but helpful, especially in expressing how we feel at times in our lives so that we can process deeply with God so that we can obey Jesus and love & forgive our enemies or those who have wronged us in some way.
Thank you, LORD, for Psalm 35.
Jesus: Your brother.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” – 1 Peter 1:3
Having introduced the letter with a greeting & a blessing to God’s chosen people spread throughout modern day Turkey. Peter then calls them & us to universally ‘bless’ or to ‘praise’ our Father in heaven. But note how the apostle describes our heavenly Father.
He is; “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (vs3a)
Pause for a moment to consider this statement. Your and my heavenly Father is also Jesus’ heavenly Father. Here we have the mystery & the wonder of the Triune God on display again for the second time in this letter (see also vs2).
“God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.” – Wayne Grudem
God your heavenly Father is also the God-man, Jesus’ Father! Jesus defers to the Father continually as is most beautifully seen in John’s gospel. I love Jesus’ words in John 5:19; “Truly, truly, I say to you, ‘the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”
Having walked with Jesus, observed Jesus, Peter is clear that Jesus the Messiah related to God as His Father. He heard Jesus speak of the Father, he witnessed Jesus’ prayer life continually taking time to be with the Father to wait on the Father & saw Jesus’ total obedience to the Father’s will, especially in the garden of Gethsemane.
Having just marvelled at the wonder of the salvation of those he is writing to (vs1-2), Peter calls these believers in Jesus to praise God the Father, the One who sent their Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ so that they might be born again.
It was the Father’s plan to save them. We know that Peter and the believers just after Jesus’ death & resurrection believed that everything of Jesus’ life was the plan of God the Father’s since they prayed;
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. – Acts 4:27-28
The apostle knew that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was the One to be praised for the plan of salvation because He was the One whom Jesus was obeying & therefore our being saved was ultimately His plan, so He is worthy of our praise & thanks.
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again – 1 Peter 1:3a – NLT
I will come back to the wonder of salvation & the mercy of God another day. But for today, I want to behold the wonder of the Trinity & it’s implications flowing out of 1 Peter 1:3.
Because God the Father is not just my heavenly Father, but also Jesus’ Father – that establishes a relationship between Jesus & ourselves that is simply wonderful to marvel at.
Jesus is not just our Messiah & Lord, worthy of all praise, honour & thanks. But Jesus is our ‘older brother’! Jesus is and was truly God & truly human, Jesus became like us so that He could save us from our sin through His atoning sacrifice & become our merciful & faithful High Priest representing us before God the Father.
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. – Hebrews 2:14-18
But note, Jesus didn’t just become human, He became our ‘brother’ – Jesus & I are related to one another because of our common relationship to God the Father. Our brother is our High Priest who mediates in the presence of the Almighty God, our Father in Heaven. He knows us, He has shared our humanity, our frailness, our suffering and so he is touched by our experiences of life & sympathises with us (Hebrews 4:14-15).
And now in this life, we are being transformed more and more into our older brother’s likeness. God the Father chose us, predestined us, foreknew us (1 Peter 1:2) so that we would be conformed to the image of God’s Son – Jesus. So that He, Jesus, would be the first of many brothers & sisters.
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. – Romans 8:29
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! – 1 John 3:1 NIV
Jesus, is not just your Saviour, He is your brother! What a privilege to be welcomed into this family over which the Father providentially cares & loves. This is who you really are, this is your primary identity now. You are in God’s family, you belong & you are being moulded daily more and more into the likeness of your brother – Jesus. He is your empathetic High Priest who is also your brother! Amen.
A remarkable greeting
1 Peter 1:1-2
In South Africa, it is common to greet someone with the vernacular, “Howzit?” Which is short for; “How is it with you?”. The funny thing is most times, people exchange their “Howzit” greeting – they do not wait or expect an actual reply to the question since they are not asking, simply greeting. In that sense, it is an unremarkable greeting.
Similarly, letters have standard ways of beginning; a salutation is just a way of starting. At first glance, 1 Peter can seem to have simply a common salutation until you look again, and in looking again, there is a rich and remarkable greeting full of meaning for us still all these years later.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
(1 Peter 1:1–2)
What grabbed my attention today was that this letter was written to Gentile believers by the apostle Peter.
- Peter, who was a Jewish fisherman to whom Jesus said, “Follow me” (Mark 1:17)
- Peter stood up full of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost & preached to crowds from all over the Roman world of the time (Acts 2:5-41)
- Peter was sent by Jesus primarily to the Jewish people (Galatians 2:8).
- Yet also the Peter to whom God revealed in a vision on a rooftop one day (Acts 10) that all people were created equal by God (Acts 10:28) & through whom the Gospel reached the Gentiles first in Cornelius’ house (Acts 10-11).
And it is to these Gentile believers spread throughout modern-day Turkey that Peter greets with a remarkable greeting. The Gospel had transformed both Peter’s view of all people & had transformed this diverse group of believers’ lives from a multitude of cultures and backgrounds, as evidenced by this remarkable greeting.
Peter greets them, addressing them as God’s “elect/chosen” people (vs1). What is remarkable is that this was one of the descriptive phrases used exclusively for God’s people in the Old Testament (see Isaiah 43:20b-21). But now Peter is addressing Gentiles utilising a phrase that had previously referred only to God’s chosen people – Israel!
Why is Peter doing this? I believe he had been so transformed by his divine revelation on the rooftop & then the sovereign work of God in saving Cornelius’ household (Acts 10) that Peter truly believed that believers in Jesus, regardless of their background or ethnicity, were now God’s chosen people.
Amazingly to me, this unification of Jew & Gentile through the Messiah had been prophesied by Zechariah more than 500 years before;
Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come, and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. 11 And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. 12 And the Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.”
(Zechariah 2:10–12)
Zechariah had prophesied how the Messiah would come and dwell amongst His people, and on that day, many nations (many Gentile nations) would join themselves to the Lord, and they would become “my people” – the phrase God uses more than 200 times, speaking exclusively of His people in the Old Testament.
Therefore, Peter’s address to Gentiles as ‘eklektos’ is significant as he is addressing them with honour as God’s chosen people. But he is not finished yet. He goes on to call them the ‘exiles’ & the ‘Diaspora’.
Once again, he is using terms that had been reserved for Israel & Jewish people scattered throughout the nations outside of Israel, but now Peter is using them for believers in Jesus who were Gentiles.
Peter is saying that just as God’s people were exiles & sojourners in Babylon, so too are these believers exiles, a Diaspora who, at this present time, are living outside of the ultimate Promised Land of heaven & the new earth.
The Gospel creates one new people, a non-racial, multicultural, class-crossing people united by their common faith in Jesus. Once you have seen the radical multicultural reality of the early church – it is impossible to unsee it.
How sad it is that so many churches worldwide are so homogenous still, therefore!
But what was the power for this transformation? What enabled people who had been divided to become God’s chosen people?
Peter tells us in vs2. These people became God’s chosen people by a sovereign work of the Triune God. God the Father foreknew them, Jesus Christ saved them through His spilt blood & the Holy Spirit made them holy so that they would love Jesus & live the rest of their lives in obedience to Jesus.
It is almost like Peter, having addressed Gentiles as “God’s chosen people”, then rocks back & ponders the mystery and majesty of this amazing truth & contemplates for a moment – how did this happen? And his reply was – only God could do this! The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit saves us & transforms us & joins us to His family of chosen ones.
Believer in Jesus, your primary identity is no longer in your ethnicity but instead is rooted in the wonder of your salvation & your Saviour – Jesus. You are now God’s chosen one & you are joined to the worldwide family of chosen ones from every tribe, tongue, language & nation.
I pray that you would lean into and live out this glorious truth daily in your life & that you would be part of a church that expresses the wonder of this glorious unity in diversity through faith in Jesus.
In closing, verses 1-2 are far more than just a greeting; they are a blessing being spoken over these believers by the apostle Peter. He wants them to experience more and more of the grace of God and the peace of God.
And that is my prayer for you today: that you would know God’s immeasurable grace is washing over your life.
That you would look back at the cross & how God has saved you by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone & you would marvel, worship & thank Jesus.
I also pray that you would experience the peace of God that is yours not because your life is easy but because through faith in Jesus, you have been reconciled to God & so you stand in a right relationship with God your Creator, your Father’s eyes are towards you, your Saviour Jesus is praying for you & He has sent the Holy Spirit as your ever-present Helper – so you can be at peace regardless of the circumstances in your life right now. Amen.
A journey through 1 & 2 Peter
I’m going to take a slow journey through Peter’s two pastoral letters – join me for encouragement and exhortation from them.
Start today by reading 1 Peter as a whole letter and then we will cycle back looking at small portions of the letter each day in the days that follow.
Two words that matter 