1 Peter

The 'pride of life' is one of the three main areas of temptation, along with the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes (1 John 2:16).  In order to feel good about life, Satan lures us to raise our own profile by speaking badly of others; and to deceive others by saying either less than the truth or more than the truth about ourselves.  Peter reminds us here that this quote from Psalm 34:12-16 is still speaking as God's Word - those who want to enjoy life must be utterly truthful.  Otherwise our own words will trap us, and the good we seek will escape from our grasp; also

All children assume that they are safe, until they find out that some people hurt them.  Such experiences light a fuse of fear which may continue to hold them back through their adult lives, further inflamed by other painful experiences.  Peter's readers had bad experiences too.  He addresses them as 'strangers in the world' and 'scattered' (1 Peter 1:1).  They must have known the feeling of being despised.  Suffering is mentioned 15 times - it is one of the themes of the letter.

People cannot become followers of Jesus if they have not heard about Him, and what He has done to save us (Romans 10:14).  Although there are millions of Christians in the world today, many of their friends and colleagues have not yet heard them speaking about Jesus Christ.  Some believers think that their faith is a private matter only for them; but Jesus told us to make more disciples for Him (Matthew 28:19).  Many others are simply afraid of an adverse reaction from friends and colleagues.  But Peter says, "Don't be frightened!"
 

God's truth has its own inbuilt power.  We can never force people to believe in Jesus - trust grows as they discover that Christ is trustworthy.  Our task is to explain who Jesus is and what He has done, so that others will be persuaded to take action (2 Corinthians 5:11) by repenting and turning to follow Him.  One of the reasons the Holy Spirit has been given to us is so that we can announce Christ with confidence (Acts 1:8).  

Born-again Christians will sometimes get into trouble for speaking about Jesus (Acts 4:18-20).  The nature of sin is that it resists the Lordship of Christ.  Because of that, any suggestion that He should be worshipped, trusted, loved and served may meet a hostile response.  When this happens to you, remember that it is not a personal attack even though it may seem to be; it is against Him (John 15:18-21).  However, Jesus did experience this personally, and in a very violent way, so that He might bring you into a right relationship with God (see

The one thing that God the Son did not deserve, was to die for our sins.  The sins were ours: the punishment should have been ours too.  He had no sins, and therefore there should have been no punishment for Him.

Today's passage is among the most difficult in the New Testament.  It deals with the time between the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.  When He was put to death, His body died and was buried.  But when He was seen again alive, He was in a very different kind of body - one in which He could appear through locked doors and disappear again, although still bearing the marks of His wounds on the cross (John 20:25).  

God’s patience with sinners is extraordinary.  While Noah was building the ark on God’s instruction over a period of many years, in dry land with no sea in sight, many came to mock the boat builder and its Designer (2 Peter 3:3-6).  But their refusal to believe the good news that the ark would save people from the flood, eventually swept them to their death (Matthew 24:39) and to hell (2 Peter 2:4-5).  God’s patience with wicked people is designed to lead them to repentance (Romans 2:4).  Peter affirms this, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some under

Where is Jesus today and what is He doing?  Some people, who claim to follow Jesus, just try to follow His example and obey His teaching as recorded in the Bible.  That is, of course, a very good thing to do, but it misses the vital dimension of relationship.  Jesus is a real living person, not just a good example or wise author.  Although the Bible forbids us to try to contact the dead (Deuteronomy 18:10-12), Jesus has been raised from death - so that we might have a relationship with Him.  He is our friend and brother with us (Hebrews 2:11), but also the supreme r

The sufferings of Christ were real, agonising and literally excruciating.  He handled them with steady resolve because of the joy of completing the salvation work (Hebrews 12:1-2).  And yet we can treat them so lightly.  His agony on the cross informs our worship and the wonderful songs we sing; they are the essence of our communion services.  But we can so easily separate them out into a 'religious' part of life, and silence their message in the workplace, home and leisure environments.  The truth is that Jesus was put to death because of our sins (1 Peter 3:18), s