The Big "Therefore" - 1 Peter 5:6-11...and a great fall

 


That is a scary sight!  The end to my workday on Tuesday resulted in a great fall down an interior staircase.  "One more thing" Adam was moving too fast for the conditions and I made a very fast descend to the next landing.  This is what most people will notice when I see them next but the real pain is the 4 cracked ribs with one of them cracked both in the front and the back.  Why am I posting this?  

We have been walking through the book of 1 Peter for the last 7 months.  Peter has been writing to the 1st century Christians who were being heavily persecuted.  They were suffering because they were followers of Jesus Christ.  They refused to say, "Caesar is lord."  In the photo you see someone suffering at the moment but it is different than what Peter has been writing of and encouraging his "beloved" to stay "firm in the faith."  Some physical pain might be similar after what they are enduring but the reason for the affliction is very different.

Most likely the picture is what most American Christians have experienced at one time or another.  The experience that Peter is writing about we have most likely not.  It would be best to practice and put into practice the exhortations that Peter gives them, the 1st century persecuted Christians, into our lives now.  As our country moves farther from some uniform following of God's ways, we, as Christians, need to step up our proclaiming of Him and His ways and also our "being examples" of Christ transformed lives.

Our passage intertwines who God is; what He has done and what He is going to do with how we are to respond.  Graphing it out always favors God's side of the graph.  Our response to His action is overwhelmed by His attributes and actions.  How we should live is the obvious response to acknowledging who God is and His attributes.  As an example, "Humble yourselves" is easy if you hold God to having a mighty, strong helping hand who at the proper time that He is in charge of will exalt or lift up those who are humble.

Another example would be, "Resist" Satan and temptation is laid aside a God who has the ability and will "restore, confirm, strengthen and establish"His own and place them in His "eternal glory" because of our association with Him through Christ's sacrifice for our sins.  Though tough at the moment, physically, emotionally and mentally I presume, our faith exercised that has been given to us by God will help us to stand firm in Him and all that He has said will be.

Always is the time to be watchful and give strict attention to our walk with the Lord.

Adam



A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

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