Again my heart melted as I read the words of this chapter… melted into the Lord and His goodness and His call for me and all who believe and obey Jesus. The deepest parts of me are at rest in my Lord. I am awed that the Lord would reveal Himself to me.
His Word challenged and comforted me this morning. And I didn’t need to read far into the chapter to find the verses for me to meditate upon.
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good (1-3).
God’s call and desire is that we grow up in our salvation. We own the responsibility to do this. It really isn’t optional, but God will not force us. In chapter 1Peter opened with our destiny to be obedient to God through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. We don’t simply call out to Jesus to be Lord and then stop growing. We are called to follow Him, and that means learn from, emulate and become like Jesus. In other words, it means to grow up in our salvation.
Too many believers seem to stop growing. It is as if they gain a sense of their salvation and become satisfied. They forget there is a task for us to do and an enemy who is constantly trying to disrupt us by having us fall back into pre-Jesus behaviors.
Peter reminds us of this as he pens verse 1. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk… This takes effort on my part.
I have choices every day… more like every moment of every day... to live more like Jesus would have me live or to live more like the unconverted people around me live. Peter says choose Jesus, which means ridding myself of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, etc., things that resemble the fallen selfish world from which I was redeemed and saved.
Today God is reminding me to choose the way of Jesus, in my dealings, behaviors, thoughts and desires…
This is a good reminder for every day…
Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I delight in Your presence in my life and in Your Word. I bless You for the reminder. It is so easy to get caught up in my life that I miss and forget I represent You in everything I say, do and think. I pray that I honor You today. That glory comes to You because of things I say and do today. To You be the glory and the honor and the praise… forever and ever, Halleluiah. Amen.
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