DaySpring Daily Word of Inspiration: 1 Peter 1:13 – Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Today’s passage is a call to action. It’s often a thing on our minds as to what can or what will God do for us. How often do we turn the tables on ourselves and wonder, what is it that God might want from me? It’s an interesting question with significance that will shed light on our scripture of the day.
When we consider God and how we are to conduct ourselves as his children it paints a vivid picture of the typical home in ANYWHERE, USA. Follow me for a moment; as a parent we raise our kids with a certain morals, expectations, and thought processes that should (we hope) make them into quality members of society. This is key because once again, it parallels our earthly existence to a spiritual existence that needs the same balance. We must really get this: God gives us these earthly life circumstances to be able to have a reference point on how He cares for us from the heavenly realm. It is extremely relative! Just as the parent in this example, God is and continues to make his word available to us so that we can have and exhibit morals, lives of expectation, and thought processes that will make us stand out in society as a person with a quality that others want to attached to – that quality factor being the light of Christ shining through you. Having this very base makes our scripture today have a very valuable meaning in the life of the believer of Jesus Christ.
On our own, we go into this world with our home training and equip ourselves to deal with life’s work based on what we have learned and experienced in our upbringings. So it is with God in our spiritual relationship with our Father in heaven. As we mature and grow in our biblical home training, there is, will be, and is even now the time for God’s children to be sent into the world to do work! How can what God has been pouring (or been trying to pour) into you be used correctly if you haven’t learned it or gained any confidence in what it is that He would have you to know about living in this world? Our scripture speaks life as it points us to the solid ground we stand on when we move in Christ, as God directs us. From biblical home training we know that we need to be prepared in our mind for action because of what our parent (Father God) has told us will plague us in this life. IT IS A BATTLE! He has already warned us! Our actions that follow will allow us to deal with troubles, heartache, failures, lust, anxiety, stress, depression, and being mistreated. When we’re prepared, it’s not a surprise when these things come into our lives; it’s welcomed because our Father has shown us how to overcome them! Amen! Next, we’re able to humbly recognize that we’ve done nothing to be able to conquer these things but it is what our parent (Father God) gave us to be equipped with; that being the Holy Spirit and Jesus always with us. We don’t get high and mighty or all puffed up on any abilities we have to no feel the pressures of life, but we attribute it to the spirit that God gave us in gratitude – knowing that it was only by our Father God that we are able. Lastly, that light that shines through us is our joy and hope in Christ and now knowing what sacrifice was truly about and it fixes our hearts on continuing his work so others may experience that same joy and hope in Christ. The knowing that we have been saved by God’s grace compels us to offer it to others simply because we didn’t deserve it either. This passage is powerful and awesome for our lives. We need to implement its truth!
With all of that being on the table now, finally let’s examine that parent/child relationship one last time. What does your parent (or you if you’re a parent) feel when they’ve taught you all they can and you go out and “make them look bad” or “act like you haven’t had any home training” or “do stuff that you know they wouldn’t approve of”? I think it’s safe to say that they would feel hurt, sorrowful, confused, and definitely unloved. Well why? Maybe because they gave you the best of them, told you how to avoid the pitfalls of life and you didn’t hold onto your home training or use it when you went into the world. Today, how do you think that makes God feel when we have heard his teaching, heard his moral decrees, heard of his love, and when you went out into the world your mind was still unprepared for action, you did everything you wanted and gave yourself all of the credit, and your only hope was in the ability to ascertain more stuff.
Today, let’s not be a disappointing child who acts like they’ve never heard their parent equipping them for life in this world. God has given us all of the tools to help us be able to live out our passage from today and bring glory to his name; now, will you? In Jesus’ name, AMEN!