kguy Bible study, Uncategorized

Faith that endures trial

(1 Peter 1:6-12)

September was a hot, dry month for us here where I live.  Smarter people than me talked about record years, but all I know is that it hasn’t rained much.  As the month neared its end and now that October is here, it’s time for the farmers to get to work.  

Harvest time has arrived for tobacco.  Although I don’t particularly like what the plant produces, it is beautiful to watch it grow.  As the summer comes to an end, the leaves of the tobacco plants turn a beautiful lime green.  All around the fields are full of row after row of lime green glory.

But drive by the next day and the fields tell a different story.  Lime green stalks stand bare, stripped of all their leaves.  Limp, ragged leaves lay strewn haphazardly across the road, having blown off the trailers hauling the tobacco harvest. The once beautiful fields now just look dusty and forlorn with rows of naked stalks.

As I view field after field whose grandeur has been wiped out, I wonder if I don’t look the same in affliction.  Trials are real.  They leave us stripped bare, limp and scattered, barely upright.  I admit that given the choice, I would choose an easy, tension-free, peaceful to the point of boredom life.  But Jesus promised trouble would inevitably come (Jn. 16:33). 

Peter too recognizes God’s power to guard us (v. 5) does not shield us from all difficulty.  Our lives and our circumstances are bound up in troubles and trials that grieve us (v. 6) and test our faith (v. 7).  We are burned out and burned up, the flames licking our faith, warping it and scarring it as we walk through suffering of all kinds.  

Yet the trials are not without purpose.  God’s priority for us through the trials is to prove the genuineness of our faith (v. 7).  I imagine this isn’t so much proving our faith to him, the one who knows everything about us, but proving our faith to ourselves.  In the trials, our faith burrows deep as we struggle to determine if God is truly worthy.  And we discover he is endlessly faithful, wholly able, always willing.  Even in the wrestling with him, he proves our faith in him is never misplaced and will never be let down.  

And when we have proven our faith genuine and at the revelation of Jesus Christ, God himself will praise, glorify and honor us for this tested and proven, but not perfect, faith (v. 7).  I imagine approaching God to offer him my dinged, charred, warped, smudged faith, and receiving his joy that I used it long and well.  Clinging to this faith through the turmoil says I believe it is worth it, I believe he is worth it.  To survive with that faith intact at the very end, however mangled it may be by then, proves that I deemed it a treasure and a priority, and proves it is real and genuine because it was tested, tried, and used.  This is the faith that lets loose God’s salvation in our lives (v. 9), since it is through faith we are saved (Eph. 2:8).  

From the original sin of Adam and Eve, God has been plotting and moving and preparing this plan of salvation until finally ushering in Jesus to secure this for us through his death and resurrection.  The prophets of the Old Testament wrote of it, searched for it, inquired God about it (v. 10-11), sought it desperately, and yet it wasn’t the time.  Even the angels long to know this salvation, since salvation is for man and not angel (v. 12).  God has come to rescue us from our sin, death, and ourselves, and we usher him in by faith.  This extraordinary salvation is ours, our blessing and our privilege.  

Knowing this salvation, what can we do but love the Father who gifts it (v. 8)?  What can we do but rejoice with joy that our hope is secure (v. 8)?  In knowing God and receiving his salvation, we are marked with love and joy, now and forever.  Whether in trials or not, confident in the salvation we have now and the completed work of salvation that is to come, knowing our full inheritance awaits us, along with God’s own praise, glory and honor for our faith – in this we rejoice. 

Father, the trials are real, the weight, suffering, indignity, and brokenness in them.  But yet you are there, calling us to yourself and inviting us to experience more of who you are, the author and perfecter of our faith.  Although we face trials, you have already obtained for us our greatest need, salvation, and secured our eternal future with you, that we may know you and enjoy you forever.  What love, what goodness, what grace and mercy!  How great you are, how good you are, how you love us.  You are worthy of all the glory, all our praise and worship, all the honor, and even more, now and forever.  Amen.

kguy Uncategorized

Our incomparable inheritance (1 Peter 1:3-6)

Note: This site will be following along with a group study of the book 1 Peter in the Bible. I invite you to read 1 Peter and follow along with us here as we dig into the beauty of God’s Word.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! (v. 3)  Peter starts in the place Jesus taught him, with praising and glorifying the Father, assigning God his rightful place above us all.  He is our Father in heaven, hallowed in name (Mt. 6:9).  When we bless him, we assign him our highest honor, declare him holy, and give him our praise and worship.  This is where we start, before anything else, remembering who we exalt.

Peter follows by recalling what God has done for us.  But what God has done for us is inextricably linked to who he is.  God is great in mercy (v. 3), choosing to not give us what we deserve.  What do we deserve?  “All have sinned,” (Rom. 3:23) and “the wages of sin are death” (Rom. 6:23).  If God chose to give us what is rightfully ours, we would all face condemnation for our sin and not just physical, but also spiritual death.  

Yet because of his mercy, God chose not to leave us for dead.  Instead he rescues us to new life (v. 3).  Our God is the God of life – of second birth, of living hope, of resurrection. He gave man life, breathing his own breath into Adam and handcrafting Eve.  He spoke all life on earth into existence.  He came in human form that we might have life abundantly.  We were made for life – abundant, rich, joyful, fulfilling life.  And although we chose death, God chases us down to offer us life.  Yes, this is his great mercy.

And this is grace. Not only does he rescue us from what we do deserve, he gives us what we don’t deserve – life, hope, resurrection (v. 3), and even more.  He has stored up for us an inheritance, a spiritual inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading (v. 4).  It does not spoil nor decay over the passage of time.  It is never tarnished nor flawed, but remains pure and perfect.  It never loses its value or goodness, as it is without change.  Nothing in our world is imperishable, undefiled or unfading, except what is of God.

We are guaranteed that this inheritance is safe, kept in heaven for us.  It is ours, sealed for us until the time we receive it.  God uses his own power to guard me until I receive that inheritance (v. 5), guarding me for it and it for me.  Who else could safeguard such a treasure?  Who else is trustworthy to shield our eternal inheritance? His constant watch and powerful guard over us preserves and sustains us until we receive the prize. 

This incomparable inheritance speaks to the heart of who God is.  The measure of his mercy and grace for us is inestimable, the depths of his love for us unreachable.  He gives generously to us all things, even himself.  He is our irresistible God.  

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ indeed!

Father, you draw us to yourself by the very nature of who you are. In knowing you, we are drawn to love you.  You are most generous with your blessings, most generous with yourself.  You invite us in with your grace, mercy and love.  May we find the delight of our souls rests in you and you alone.  Amen.  

kguy Uncategorized

Grace in the now and grace in the becoming

John MacArthur calls Peter the disciple with the food-shaped mouth.  I identify strongly with this weakness of Peter’s, having a special knack for inserting my own foot squarely into my mouth on many occasions.  Although my verbal faux pas live on in my memory, Peter’s indiscretions were recorded for posterity throughout the Gospels.

I hear Peter say, “But if you say so,” when Jesus instructed him to cast the fishing nets again.  Peter, the professional fisherman, reluctantly followed Jesus’ instruction, doubtful that Jesus might know better than him (Luke 5:5).

I hear Peter blurt impetuously into the very face of the living God “You will never wash my feet!” as Jesus humbly kneeled before him (John 13:8).

I hear presumptuous Peter brag “Even if everyone else falls away, I will not” before he denied Christ three times (Mark 14:29).

But maybe most astonishing to me is when Peter told Jesus at the transfiguration, “It is good that we are here.” (Matthew 17:4). I imagine him saying it with an air of pride and importance and ignorance of what he is witnessing.  Here before him was the glory of God in human form, something many would dream of but few would witness.  And Peter, in the midst of all of this, couldn’t help but feel pride and say aloud his own importance at being there.  

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting Peter.  Maybe as he stood there, his heart was more aligned to submission and service than I give him credit for.  Many times the words emerging from my mouth do not come across in the way I intend them.  Maybe Peter suffered from the same problem.  

Peter’s foot in mouth syndrome revealed something important about his character.  Peter was bold in word and deed.  He was the disciple who asked the most questions of Jesus, more than the other disciples combined.  He was curious, inquisitive, seeking, and was audacious enough to ask of Jesus the things that he wanted to know.  He was also quick to answer Jesus’ questions.  He answered wrong many times, and yet rarely did Jesus rebuke him for it.  Jesus seemed to appreciate Peter’s boldness, his quickness with his words.  Or at the very least Jesus was not bothered by the way Peter responded to or asked questions. 

With Jesus being God and God knowing everything there is to know, we can safely assume Jesus knew Peter’s personality well before he called Peter to be a disciple.  It wouldn’t be a jump to conclude Jesus appreciated Peter’s boldness, even having plans for that boldness – to use it for his glory, his church, his kingdom. Maybe the things we are most concerned about in our own personalities are the very things that Jesus will mold and use as we serve him wholeheartedly in faith.  

Peter didn’t have to clean up his personality, squash his boldness, or keep his foot out of his mouth before God began to use him.  Jesus’ willingness to choose Peter showed confidence that Peter could glorify God both as he was and as the man he would become, both in the right now and in the future, as Peter matured and grew through the power of the Holy Spirit.

In the right now, I’m a weary mom with a loud and strong personality who thinks and says the wrong things too often.  Yet Jesus delights in using me now, as the woman I am.  

At the same time, I am becoming.  Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus continues to transform me, to grow me, to sanctify me.  And in the becoming, I also glorify him.

Peter wasn’t always called Peter.  It was Jesus who changed his name from Simon to Peter, meaning “rock.” When Jesus changed his name, Peter wasn’t much of a rock.  He would still say questionable things, answer wrongly, have Jesus call him “Satan,” and deny Christ three times.  But Jesus knew how Peter would mature.  By changing his name, Jesus seems to call Peter into a better version of himself, to give him vision for the man he could become.  

This is the journey motherhood has been for me.  The moment that baby looked up at me the first time, I realized I was wholly unprepared and ill equipped to be a mother.  Yet all through this season, I have heard Jesus calling me into a better version of myself.  I sense the vision for the woman he wants me to become as he sanctifies me and grows me to look more like him.  That growth doesn’t happen smoothly, without pain, or without mistakes.  But it’s happening, just as it did for Peter.

God is big enough to use all of us, just as we are, for his glory.  He is great enough, powerful enough, and good enough to continue to grow us over time.  He loves us and delights in inviting us into his work and his glory always.

Even you.  Even me. Even Peter.  

Lord, you created us with these personalities, strengths, and even these weaknesses.  You delight in who we are and in who we are becoming, in and through you. Give us the desire to serve you faithfully and to glorify your name both now and forevermore.  Amen.