Gird Up the Loins of your Mind

I am excited to be with you today and I am also excited to find out what God has in store for every single one of us who are attending to this retreat.

When I was asked to share this time and my thoughts on this verse with all of you, the word "context" was the first word that came to my mind. Context is everything, especially when it comes to read and get a message from God through his word. Please bear with me while I build my point.

1 Peter 1:13 is an exhortation to prepare our minds for action. To be sober and set our hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Having gone to seminary and being a person who likes structure, I went over a couple of Bible commentaries and found out that this verse's foundation was built on the previous 12 verses of this chapter. Moreover, in the Greek text these first 12 verses are just one long sentence.

Reading the first 12 verses allow us to find the meaning of that grace the author is talking about in verse 13.

As usual God is always the initiator and in his infinite grace He allows us:

to be born again through the sacrifice and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, from the dead (verse 3).

He has also made us heirs of an imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance reserved in heaven for us (verse 4),

And we are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (verse 5).

It is interesting to mention that the power of God protects us through our faith, and our faith in Jesus is the only way that will lead us to salvation in the end of times.

In other words, preparing our minds for action or girding up the loins of our mind, which is another expression used in a different Bible translation, is a call to roll up our sleeves, to get ready and make of our faith in God the main point of our attention in life. We are also called to be sober minded. The author used sobriety as a literary figure to urge his audience to avoid mental intoxication.

You see, the enemy knows that if he has our mind, he's got us. That is why Peter's exhortation in this verse is so relevant and crucial.

Now, the following are some questions I would ask myself throughout our retreat and I invite you to do the same. This will be an opportunity to practice an introspective drill at an individual level and as a community of men who love Jesus. Here they are:

What is the current state of my mind?

Is the quality of the content I am filling up my mind with increasing my faith in Jesus?

As a man, am I making of my faith in Jesus the main reason of my existence?

The expression sober-minded comes from the Greek word νήφω (nepho) which has 2 meanings, one is to be sober and the other one is to be self-controlled or to be disciplined. So my questions at this point are:

Am I being sober minded or disciplined in my current spiritual walk?

Am I letting the pressures of life, work, social media, social unrest, injustice, anxiety, depression, lust, and my selfish agendas to control my mind?

Is my hope in God bigger than the hope I have on people, recognition, and material possessions?

You see, allow me to be real. After reading the chosen verse I realized how far I am from the man I want to be, but fortunately our God is a God of new mercies every morning. Gentlemen, following Jesus is not for flakes. In fact, once we declare our allegiance to Jesus there is no turning back and we are called to practice Christlikeness and to become the man God intended for us to be. I guess the current status of the big C church reflects the degree of our performance as Jesus followers.

It is my prayer that this time over the mountains will open our hearts and minds to find out the purpose God has planned for every single one of us from the beginning of time. I also pray that we could have an opportunity to witness the transformative power of YHWH, the only one who can bring dry bones back to life.

May the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit bless us all along this time.

Thank you for blessing me with the opportunity to share.