Imperishable, Undefiled, and Unfading

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, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 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

I read through 1 Peter this afternoon. The beauty of the passage above really hit me as I started reading. God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through Christ and the inheritance that we receive as children of God is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” Then later on in the chapter in verse 13 Peter says: “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

We have been given a new hope and here we are instructed to not hope in anything else. “Hope fully on the grace” not hope partially, or hope mostly. Hope fully in the Grace that will be completed at the return of Christ.

Do you find yourself hoping in other things or other people? I want to urge each of us to join Peter as he praises God in this passage for the hope that we have been given through Christ Jesus and urge you to cling to that hope. It is all that we have that is of true value. By clinging to Christ we will receive the treasure that is Imperishable, undefiled, and Unfading.

What Will Change The World?

Love will.

It starts with God's love. "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows his love for us in that while were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8 ESV

Then our love which is rooted in God's Love must be used to reach the lost, lonely, and hurting people. Today I read the following statements on Ann Voskamp's blog. I really liked what they had to say about Love.

Love is the only thing that ever changed me — and Love is the only thing that will ever change the world — and love is the only thing that is the real radical.

Love has no limits and it can’t be contained and when we have a radical love for God, God takes care of the location of where the love flows. --Posted by Ann Voskamp on A Holy Experience blog

Have you felt God's love for you today? Have you shown God's love to another today?

The Covenant of Marital Love

Piper, Carson, and Keller on Sustaining the Covenant of Marital Love from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Not For Your Sake

"Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Ezekiel 36:22-27 ESV

It is a beautiful thing that God does to His children. He cleansses us and gives us a new heart and new spirit so that we will follow Him and his rules. It is wonderful to know that He is the one that does this for us because we know that we can’t do it on our own. Find joy in this today. We just need to make sure that we remember why God chooses to do this. Look back at the first verse of the passage that I included above. “It is not for your sake…but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned.” God does not do these things ultimately for us. He does this to vindicate his holy name which we have profaned.

So before we start thinking we are hot stuff let us remember that it is God that has done this work in us and He has done it for his Glory. What are we to do now? Praise God in all that we do to show the nations that He is holy and that He is good.

Grace Upon Grace

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'") And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. –John 1:14-16 ESV

I love John Chapter 1. It is such a beautiful picture of Jesus. Today when I got to the office, I spent the first 10-15 minutes reading through this chapter and reading notes about this chapter. As I read through this chapter the part I quoted above really stuck out. Especially verse 16. “And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” Isn’t that beautiful? Through the fullness of Christ we have received an outpouring of grace that is like a fountain that just keeps overflowing. Grace upon Grace.

I pray that today you will see the beauty of Christ. If you need some reminders of his beauty, read through John 1. As you think of the beauty of Christ I pray that you will cling to the grace that we have received through his fullness.