LIVE LIKE YOU MEAN IT

“So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.  So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then.”  1 Peter 1:13-14

     Peter is addressing the topic of holy living with several churches in Asia Minor in the beginning of his first letter.  I regularly stress adopting a Christ-like attitude in all things because I know first hand how easily one can slip back into old, ungodly habits.  Obeying the standards set forth in scripture by the Lord will bolster your faith and increase your level of trust in the things of God.  If you begin to rely on your own resources and abilities you will eventually fail.

     Before we made our covenant with God we did what came naturally to unregenerate man, we lived as we thought best and reveled in our freedom.  Sadly, we never realized that what we thought was freedom was really a noose around our neck.  Once we asked for and received forgiveness, our zeal carried us down the spiritual path. It is the salvation that the Lord graciously provided for us in spite of ourselves that is designed to alter the pattern of our life.  We find that obedience to God’s word, not the Mosaic Law, but the grace filled words of the New Testament, is what now carries us over the flood of evil that strives to wash us away. 

     When we leave our old self and his ways behind we never need turn back.  It’s up to us. It’s our decision.  We may not have known any better back then, but we should by now.  Living for Christ carries us thru the valleys and up to the mountaintop.  No matter where we are right now, God loves us the same as He always did.  Nothing will ever change the love the Lord has for each of us.¹  So live for Christ like you mean it.  Until next time, walk with the King and be a blessing!

NOTE:  The translation used is the New International Version (NIV); Publisher: Biblica.

¹  Romans 8:38-39 New International Version (NIV)

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”