The theme of enduring in Christ while suffering in the cultures and societies of the world was well known to the early church. Peter encourages the church to endure, to keep the faith, even though the hardships are great for the people of The Way. Christians were suffering in every land. Their message of the Jewish Messiah was not welcomed in the secular world and neither was it welcomed in Israel. The Good News was an anathema to the intellectual Greeks who lived their lives based on their senses, with gods portraying strengths and attributes that could be understood in human terms. The Jew’s society was undergirded by following the law. No matter where the Jews were located in the ancient world, the law was the foundation of their communities. Whether Greek or Jew, all cultures inculcate teaching concerning doing good, not evil—being helpful, not hurtful, productive and not degenerate. People know that possessing admirable attributes is better than exhibiting adverse characteristics. Getting along with others and working toward the common good is an absolute necessity in a healthy community. When people are positive contributors in a community rather than negative ones, they add to the viability of a society. However, Jesus rejects the notion of human beings achieving harmony in their communities merely by being good because their basic nature is contrary to the goodness necessary to achieve lasting peace and cooperation. He tells the Pharisee, Nicodemus, Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. (John 3:3) We must become something other than what we are as carnal human beings, with self-centered goals and attitudes, to fellowship peaceably with man and God. Of course, Jesus is talking about a new creature within us when He said we must be born again. This born again experience happens when we accept Jesus’ work as a substitute for our works. We do become new creatures; we are born again in another form that is holy and completely acceptable to God. But all of this talk of needing a savior and of needing to be totally different from man’s natural inclinations was nonsense to the ancient world and remains nonsense to the majority of the people on Earth. Humans do not want to accept the fact that we are depraved, unredeemable in our present form, even though they know God said every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. (Genesis 8:21) We will not accept that assessment from God. We rail against this idea that we are depraved sinners, unacceptable to God in our present form. If we fall short of blamelessness, we will just work at being better. However, the Bible clearly states that to know God you must take on the nature of God. Only a new creature can be faultless; only a born-again person can enter into eternity with God. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)
Our spiritual transformation to a new creature will be realized fully someday in heaven. The old body and its travails and weaknesses will be left behind. Then we will understand fully that we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (2 Corinthians 6:16) Nevertheless, despite our position in Christ, when we suffer in this present world, we sometimes lose the hope of the message of the new creature and retreat to the standards of this world of good and evil, right or wrong. We retreat from the efficacy of the cross and go back to the standard of living that the world of the senses presents to us: of living by the law. Attempting to escape our suffering in body or spirit by being like everyone else: sometimes good, sometimes bad, we blend into the community. Suffering can make us believe that all of this transformational talk of redemption and deliverance through faith is nothing more than wishful thinking. Suffering can bind people to the vicissitudes of life, to the physical senses of this world. Peter warns Christians not to depart from the faith because of the ordeals of life. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Do not go back to the old ways of thinking. You are new creatures; reveal God by being servants to all. Be open to loving everyone. Be blameless in your lives so that the world cannot defame the name of Christ by your wicked ways of living. Jesus said the world will hate you because they hated him. He said, A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. (John 15:20) Unbelievers despise the message that they are not acceptable to God, that their self-serving, self-oriented lives do not please him. They do not want to hear that they need a Savior. But Peter says to the church, be strong, resist evil doers, resist their father the devil: Resist him, standing firm in the faith. The devil will do anything he can to divert you from depending on the cross. He hates the redemption message, for that message alone makes people free from his control. He would love for people to go back to the right and wrong of life to escape from their suffering. He wants Christians to blend into the community by joining in with people on what they hate, what they despise, and who should be isolated and who should not. If we look like everyone else, we will not be persecuted. If our love goes only as far as the world’s love, people will accept us, cooperate with us. The world does not like the message that we must be completely different to be in the kingdom of God. Even some Christians reject that message, thinking God does not know what goes on in their thinking. The Pharisees, the best followers of the Law, maybe comparable to Christians in our day, were practicing sin in their minds, thinking of selfish desires, ascendency, and the like. Jesus looked at them and said, You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of bones of the dead and everything unclean. (Matthew 23:27)
In 1 Peter we read a lot about submission. Submission to what? Overall, we are asked to submit to a loving God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8) God is dedicated to the salvation of all. His plan is complete—none of us escape the fact that we are incurable, unredeemable through our own efforts because of our sin. We do not have the strength to live blameless lives in this world. Yet in Christ we are changed. We can show forth the goodness of God, the righteousness of God. People should look at us and say there is a person who is kind and loving. Although the Bible tells us we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, without Christ’s redemptive work we are NOTHING. Jesus said, Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone. (Mark 10:18) Jesus was in his fleshly body when He stated that. The flesh endures many pressures daily. We know Jesus was sinless, but the stresses of life made him tired, and the Bible says He rested sometimes due to weariness. God does not get tired: He is the same every day, every year, every millennium. He is the same from everlasting to everlasting. We do not know any good people in our surroundings, for ONLY GOD IS GOOD. If we suffer in any way, we suffer knowing only God is good and all-knowing, only God understands our situation and our need. If we have accepted Christ, we are the temple of God, the blessed ones that God has sought to live within forever. He will not lose us in a crowd. We do not have to grow weary of trying to find God to be with him. He is within us because we placed our faith in Christ alone, and his love came into our lives. We are no longer living for ourselves, but for others. How important that is! None of us really know what a new creature looks life. We do not really know what Jesus meant when He said we must be born again, but regardless of our comprehension of what Jesus meant, we do know that He did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world. Of course, unregenerate humans are averse to the salvation message. They retreat from it, and they persecute those who have accepted the message. This is the human condition; the desire to rectify everything in their own lives by their own efforts. They do not like the light that came into the world. They retreat from it, even desire to stamp the light out. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19) If you suffer in any way, do not go to the pasture of good and evil or right or wrong; do not go to the pasture of blending in with the world; go to the King’s pasture of life. This pasture has enough food for you every day, the manna from God’s hands, and there is always the gushing water of the Holy Spirit from the rock that abides in the middle of the pasture. You will find continuous peace and refreshment there. The devil cannot touch your soul for you are enduring IN CHRIST, THE SAVIOR OF YOUR SOUL. Breakfast companions, live by faith, live with love, live not as the world lives or desires you to live, but live by the will of God, remembering what Jesus said when He resisted the devil: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
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