“Praise be to the God and the 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.”
~ 1 Peter 1:3
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you know what sets a Christ-follower guy, gal or kid apart from a non-Christ-follower guy, gal or kid? Your grandpaa will let Peter explain to you what sets a Christ-follower guy, gal or kid apart from a non-Christ-follower guy, gal or kid. In the first circular letter that Peter had couriered to Christ-follower guys and gals who may have fled from the city of Rome to escape Nero – who was an evil, crazed Roman tyrannical ruler who really enjoyed watching Christ-follower guys and gals suffer and die and who burned down the city of Rome in 64 A.D., Peter told the Christ-follower guys and gals who had relocated to Asia, Bithynia, Pontius, Galatia and Cappadocia how they were different from the guys and gals who were not Christ-followers. Peter begins his first circular letter – which he wrote a couple of years after Nero burned down the city of Rome, in 1 Peter 1 telling the guys and gals who were Christ-followers who would read his letter that they were God’s elected guys and gals. Peter is wanting all the Christ-follower guys and gals who are living where his first circular letter would go to to know that God knows all about them through His foreknowledge of them before He formed planet Earth. Peter is wanting these Christ-follower guys and gals to know that God – as God the Spirit, is sanctifying them and that the blood of God – as God the Son, that He shed on a cross was the ransom payment for their sins. Peter wrote this as an authority – as Peter had been an eyeball witness of what took place to God – as God the Son – Jesus, when he with his own eyes saw Jesus unjustly suffer and die in a very brutal, inhumane way.
When the presence of God – as God the Spirit, arrived on his head as a tongue of fire and into his heart as a source of power, Peter got it. This once bumbling, impulsive fisherman became a thoughtful, insightful messenger of God’s truths. Peter’s excitement of his hope bursts from the words that he wrote in verse 3, “Praise be to the God and the 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.” While your grandmaa and grandpaa spent eight weeks with the thirty-nine member South America Mission summer team that went to Colombia, South America in the summer of 1976, your grandpaa got to know John Tarzwell as a friend. John grew up in Wynndel, British Columbia, Canada. When John was a little kid, John tipped over a pot of water that his ma had boiling on her stove. The boiling water scalded John’s feet. Because of how badly that some of John’s toes had been burned by the scalding water, John lost several of his toes on both feet. It did not seem to bother John that his feet were missing toes. John wore open toe sandals almost the entire time that he was in Colombia. Each guy and gal – who was on South American Mission’s summer team in 1976, had to – during the three days of briefing in Florida, practice going through an evangelistic booklet that was called the ‘Four Spiritual Laws’. Each guy and gal was asked that he or she read through the ‘Four Spiritual Laws’ with Colombian guys, gals and kids who would be okay with taking the time to listen to what was being read from the booklet. There were questions in the ‘Four Spiritual Laws’ booklet that a guy, gal or kid needed to answer to with either a yes or no. If a guy, gal or kid answered yes to the question of whether or not he or she would like to make a decision of faith, the summer team guy or gal who was reading the ‘Four Spiritual Laws’ booklet to the guy, gal or kid would read the short prayer that was in the ‘Four Spiritual Laws’ booklet to help the guy, gal or kid pray a prayer that had him or her asking for forgiveness from God for his or her sins and making a commitment to God to be to Him an obedient, faithful Christ-follower guy, gal or kid. Your grandpaa one morning in downtown Barranquilla, Colombia was standing on the opposite side of a street from where John was standing when he saw John waving wildly at him and yelling to him that the guy who he had just shared the ‘Four Spiritual Laws’ booklet with had just said yes. John would become a missionary. When John stayed in Pakistan for an extra couple of days to continue to help Afghanistan refugees – after he had his very pregnant wife and two sons fly back to Canada, John was probably murdered by a mullah who did like what John was doing. John had gotten it; he would die for being compelled to share the Good News – just as Peter died for sharing the Good News.
Peter knew that his time and the time that the guys and gals who would read his letter had of living on planet Earth is no longer than grass that withers quickly and flowers that fade even faster. Peter knew that his inheritance – which is being preserved by God, that is waiting in heaven for him and for every guy, gal and kid who is a Christ-follower, will never perish, spoil or fade. Peter knew that receiving this promised inheritance that is waiting for him and for each Christ-follower guy, gal and kid who will read his circular letter will have to first go through refining trials so that he and they will have an even greater reason to want to praise, honor and glorify God. The difference between a Christ-follower guy, gal and kid and a non-Christ-follower guy, gal and kid is a proactive, self-controlled holy life that is obedience focused on serving and worshipping God versus a life that is self-centered and driven by an incessant craving to sin.
1 Peter 1 (768)