DownloadOct. 19, 2009 issue
Blazing life
Lesson for November 1, 2009 — 1 Peter 1:13-25
By Carmen AndresPage:
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From the beginning, we were created to live in a whole, loving relationship with God and each other in a good world. Then sin ruined us, fracturing everything. But God works to redeem his creation. And, as Scot McKnight observes in The Blue Parakeet, “the way God works redemption in this world is through his covenanted community — first Israel, then the church.”
Andres
In those earlier stories, God’s people — try as they might — couldn’t get it right. But with Jesus, what God kindled in them explodes outward, the kingdom and its new community unleashed. And with the Spirit, we’re enabled to live as we were created to: in a restored relationship with God, others and the world.
But what does that look like — and how does it work? We get a glimpse in one of Peter’s letters.
A brand new life
Peter is writing to mostly Gentile believers living in Asia Minor and in a culture that is growing hostile toward them.
Peter encourages them with the bottom line: “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!” (1 Peter 1:3-4, Message).
Therefore, he says, get out there and really live that new life. “Roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming… . Let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness” (13-15, Message). Don’t live like you did before; live set apart for God. Live like Jesus!
Living in trust and obedience, says Peter, cultivates “sincere love” (22, NIV). So, “love one another as if your lives depended on it” (Message). You have been born again, and that new birth “comes from God’s living Word” that “goes on and on forever.” That is who “conceived the new life in you” (25, Message).
From the heart
Peter’s words remind us that our redemption doesn’t simply transform our individual lives but also the ones we live together. “The Spirit who sanctifies creates not just individualistic Christians but a community in which love redemptively creates fellowship,” observes McKnight in A Community Called Atonement. “God’s spirit purifies so that they will have a ‘genuine mutual love’ and so that they can ‘love one another deeply from the heart.’ ”
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