1 Peter 1:3-7 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” This episode talks about God's promise of heaven to us and also about why we go through trials. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
What A God We Have!
1 Peter 1:3-7 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
God is so great! He sent his only son down to die on a cross for our sins and through his resurrection we have been given a new birth into the living hope. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection we are now able to go to heaven. The verse says that our inheritance, which is to spend eternity with or heavenly Father, is imperishable, undefiled and unfading. I can’t think of anything on earth that I can say the same about. That is pretty amazing. We have the opportunity to go to heaven, what are we doing with that opportunity? Are we wasting it by living however we want to live and not paying any attention to what God wants?
The message translation of this verse says, "Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.” We have everything to live for, including a future in heaven- and the future starts now! That seems like a call to action to me. If we are not really living, what is holding us up? Time waits for no one. We all have a lot to live for, so why aren’t we truly living? Why aren’t we taking full advantage of this life while we have it? The line in the message translation that I love is “The Day is coming when you’ll have it all-life healed and whole.” Isn’t that something to look forward to? Doesn’t that sound amazing?
We live in a broken world. In this world we get hurt frequently, we sometimes hurt others, this will not be the case in heaven. In heaven we will be healed and whole. We will get to spend eternity in the presence of our heavenly Father and Jesus. Your life may seem long, you may seem like the idea of heaven is so far away. However, our lives here on earth are relatively short if we compare them to eternity. Isn’t doing the right thing here on earth, even if it is inconvenient, worth the eternal reward we will get in heaven?
The verse also says that we are being protected by the power of God. I wonder if we all realize exactly how powerful God is? He created the whole earth, He parted the Red Sea, He provided mana for the Israelites when they were in the desert, He flooded the entire earth, He healed the sick, turned water into wine, raised the dead. The Lord has done incredible things with His mighty power and now His power is protecting you. There isn’t anything that the Lord can’t do. Whatever you are going through, the power of the Lord can protect you. Have you asked him lately? I asked someone yesterday what he could do for self care because his dad has dementia and isn’t the same person as he was. He said he could pray about it as he really hadn’t been doing that. My friend is not alone. We all forget to pray about things sometimes. We worry about them and we think about them all the time. We assume that God knows we want Him to help in our difficult situation and so we don’t think to ask Him for that help. Let’s try to change this. Let’s try to stop and pray about anything that is worrying us, right from the beginning, instead of doing it as an after thought.
The verse goes on to say, “In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” The Lord is telling us that we can rejoice at the thought of Heaven and knowing that He is protecting us, even though we will have to suffer various trials here in this world. This verse is saying that we have to suffer these trials so that the genuineness of our faith may be tested. Think about the various trials you have gone through and you are going through. Would you have responded differently to those trials if you knew that the Lord was protecting you and that they were just a test of your faith? If you read the story of Job, you can see that the trials he went through were definitely a test of faith. He was a faithful and loyal servant of the Lord and the devil thought if he went through the unimaginable, he would stop having faith in the Lord. He did go through the worst possible trials. He lost his children, his land, his livestock, his friends, the people that once looked up to him, his money, the only thing he had left was his wife and his life. He even came down with a terrible sickness that caused him pain day and night.
Job did not give up hope in the Lord. His faith did not waiver, even though he didn’t understand what was going on, he continued to talk to the Lord, and to believe in Him. I wonder if we can say the same. I wonder if we will change the way we respond to trials in the future. If the Lord is telling us that He is giving us these trials so that we can prove our faith to him, then what can we do to show the Lord we believe and trust in Him? First, we can continue to pray to the Lord. Even if we don’t know what to say, we can just sit with Him. We can just call out his name. Whatever you can do in the moment. Second, we can believe that He will protect us. And if we don’t believe we can let the Lord know that we want to believe by saying what the father said in Mark 9:24 “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”
I know going through trials if difficult and not pleasant for anyone. Although some trials can seem impossibly long and so difficult to deal with, the Lord is there with you through it all. He has not and will not abandon you. Job felt as if the Lord had abandoned him, he questioned where he was through it all. If you feel this way, it is normal, you are normal. Life’s challenges are hard and we are all doing the best we can. I am hoping now that we know the trials we go through are a test of our faith that we may be able to respond to them differently. I am hoping that we can turn towards the Lord instead of away from Him. I am hoping that asking the Lord for help and handing it over to Him will be our first thought instead of our last resort. I will leave you with the question I asked earlier. How would you respond differently if you knew you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith could be found?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we are so grateful that you are with us through all of our trials. Lord, we ask you to help us respond in faith when we are struggling. Help us to continue to love you and pray to you even in the middle of our struggle. Lord you are amazing and we can’t wait to spend eternity with you. We are so grateful for our inheritance Lord and so grateful that you sent your only son to save us. We are so lucky. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you on Monday. Have a blessed weekend!