Living before God our Father

Apostle Peter encourages the believers through this letter to handle persecution. Peter points out three significant areas of social and economic persecution that a person faces in connection with their Christian lives from three main sources: Romans, Jews, and even their own families. We are not living in any better environment today, we also have same issues.

As Christians today when we live on this earth the Bible/ the Word of the Almighty God demands our absolute and complete holiness and purity. Peter serves as a guide in this letter on how we need to improve our Christian lives without failing. When one becomes a Christian, the individual should learn to submit and adapt himself/ herself to the Christ like nature of their lives. The Bible doesn’t say to abandon but learning to adapt to the nature of life that God wants matters as you are in Christ.

A driver’s license examiner told about a teenager who had just driven an almost perfect test. “He made his only mistake,” said the examiner, “when he stopped to let me out of the car. After breathing a sigh of relief, the boy exclaimed, ‘I’m sure glad I don’t have to drive like that all the time!’” many Christians are like the boy. They put on a good front when they know someone is watching, but the rest of the time they let down their standards. There’s not much difference between them and those in the world, except that they go to church a little more.

ALL THE TIME – Peter teaches us to maintain ourselves HOLY. Let me make it plain at the outset that you cannot get to heaven by striving to be holy. Good works cannot pay the penalty for our sins. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can satisfy the justice of God. We must put our trust in Him, not in our good works. But, if our faith in Christ to save us is genuine, it will result in a life of progressive holiness. If a person is not striving against sin and seeking to grow in holiness, it is doubtful whether his faith was saving faith. Scripture says, “Without holiness no one will see the Lord”

He teaches us to Live for God and I would like to focus on three important thoughts in connection with to living HOLY - we must be focused on Christ’s coming, obedient in all of life, and growing in our knowledge of God’s holiness.

1) We must be focused on the Coming of Christ (1:13) – The Bible teaches us to prepare our minds, by fixing our hope and be ready by the revelation of Jesus Christ. In three aspects Peter teaches us to be ready:-

a) Being prepared MENTALLY (in your mind)

Gird up your loins – the point I wuld like to raise to our attention here along with Peter is that How Peter displays the significance of or thought life. What you think determines how you live. We see a great deal of significan on the topic of how to deal with sin – deal with sin on the thought level. Judge wicked thoughts immediately when you have them, confess them to God. For example if you are angry at someone – ask God to help you replace those thoughts of anger on the person against him with love and God’s word. Fight mentally turn with me to – Paul says put every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Your Christianity shouldn’t be for display for others on this earth but it matters for God, it is on the thought level that tells us about your Christian faith. It is easy to fool everyone but God knows your thoughts. If you are faking your Christian life and not building a spiritual life more or less sooner the sin will come out in the open.

So as Christ is coming we need to carefully guard what you physically prepare yourself. Let not the materialistic garbage of this world influence our spiritual lives for to whom we are preparing ourselves. Peter says fix our HOPE in the grace that will be brought to us as the revelation of Jesus Christ.

b) Being prepared SPIRITUALLY

Be sober – high alert, to be careful and self controlled. It means you should have a clarity of the mind, Holy living comes from preparing oneself spiritually which can result in accurate judgement

c) Being motivated by GRACE

Peter teaches his readers about Christian life. Fix your minds mentally and spiritually, but also now you need to motivated by carrying out your Christian lives with grace because of the trials and temptations. There will be struggles and one needs the grace of God to continue forward. The future grace should motivate us to live Holy lives now.

So the first area of developing a Holy lifestyle is to focus on the coming of Christ, by being alert in our thinking, spiritual lives and motivated by grace.

2) We must be obedient to the Father in all of life (1:14-15)

Obedience should be characterized by three things:-

a. Breaking our old Lifestyle – Peter goes on to elaborate the need to be staying separate and away by not conforming to the things of this world. The need of transformation should be both inward and outward one cannot say I have transformation only inside and I don’t need outside or vice versa.

Peter sets for the standard of our lifestyle and that is to live for God. We are called to set apart our lives for His glory, so expects us to maintain holiness in our lives where we are living and working. The people whom we interact should learn about God from our lives and say, I see the presence of God in his or her live by the individuals interaction, and not by the external. Our Focus and priority should what God desires from us to do

b. Developing a habit of obeying - “As obedient children” (1:14) is a Hebrew expression that means “characterized by obedience,” or “habitual obedience.” The implication is that God is our Heavenly Father whom we obey. His Word tells us how He wants us to live. We ought to obey God as a conditioned response. Such obedience is not legalism, but rather should characterize those under grace. Peter quotes from the Law () and applies it directly to his readers under grace: “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” We are not under the ceremonial or civil laws of Israel. But God’s moral law stems from His holy nature and is just as applicable under grace as it was under law (see ). As God’s children, we need to get in the habit of asking, “What does God’s Word say?” Then we obey it.

c. Erasing the attitude that our secular lives and Christian are different – As simple and plain I would like to say along with Peter here that you need to learn how to celebrate your Christian lives. Don’t live a double life, 1:15b – be holy your selves in all your behaviour. Peter teaches here avoid the life of dichotonomy, Peter here links holiness with our conduct of life. He says here learn to celebrate your Christian lives. Both our private and public lives matters, the advantage of such an integrated life here is that it eliminates a life of hypocrisy. When I say that I would like to add our lives are not always perfect but when you come across an issue in life you need to confess it. The shallow lives of practical Christian lives should be admonished very seriously Holy people must be focused on the coming of Christ and obedient in all of life.

3) We must grow in our personal knowledge of the Holiness of God (1:15-16)

The Christian life is a progressive process of growing to know God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture. This knowledge of the Holy One has a transforming effect on our lives. We can never be as holy as God is holy, since such absolute holiness belongs to God alone. But we can and must grow in personal holiness as we grow to know our Holy God.

Understanding the Knowledge of the Holy One of God should transform our Christian lives and this should influence us even at our work places. Now we are going to examine in this next few minutes how we can maintain our holiness at work, as the disparity can create issues for us to maintain Holy lives in front of God.

Celebrating Holiness at Work

· Integrate, but don’t segregate – the Bible teaches us from by far to enjoy our lives, but celebrating doesn’t mean living life like a party rather in every effort finding the true purpose and satisfaction in the life you have, there will be pain and problems. But matters how you progress your life forward.

· Christian life is a journey and not a destination – – path of life. never be clouded by your struggles to avoid living a Holy life. what matters is not the goal but enjoying the journey. (illustration teacher and students.)

· Becoming the Butterfly – – in our Christian lives what matters is not the goal achieved but the progressive result of our journey, example of the growth of butterfly. We should not be obsessed about our professional goals and destroy our Christian lives.

· Requisite Variety – – the need of being prepared to face adversity. We are always going to come across challenges but what matters is how we face the adversity. God has given us wisdom to be prepared rather than giving up. Instead of being pessimistic about life one needs to move forward with preparedness.

· Finding a good friend – building a positive relationship matters to maintain where we are and indeed it is important to have a good friendships. So we can support each other to portray Holy lives – Paul could vouch for onesimus to Philemon because of his friendship with Philemon.

· Striving Hard – – working with the goal of serving God. As we progress to achieve the goals in our lives, there is a huge time of waiting, what matters is how we prepare as I said earlier mentally preparing matters – God wants us to enhance our selves during the waiting process. using the time God gave for us productively

· Finding Significance – – when we go with the purpose of God, we learn importance of our growth and how we achieved it. People can’t find the purpose they grumble and complain, our Christian lives God expects us to be content and find the pprupose of God in ourselves and not in our neighbors lives. God doesn’t call us to live lives of our neighbor, he call us to be ourselves and find his purpose.

The imminent return of Christ should motivate us to live for him. his means being mentally alert (“think clearly”), disciplined (“exercise self-control”), and focused (“look forward”). The God of Israel and of the Christian church is holy—he sets the standard for morality. Unlike the Roman gods, he is not warlike, adulterous, or spiteful. Unlike the gods of the pagan cults popular in the first century, he is not bloodthirsty or promiscuous. He is a God of mercy and justice who cares personally for each of his followers. Our holy God expects us to imitate him by following his high moral standards and by being both merciful and just.Are you ready to meet Christ?