Our living hope

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

Our living hope, our gracious salvation does not simply impact the future for it affects the way we live today. From our text, Peter sets the time line boundaries for our behavior. We are to focus on the sure hope because of our salvation. We entered into that hope when we committed ourselves in faith to Jesus Christ. Christians must not forget the salvation they obtained because of the decision to commit their life to God. Equally important is not to ignore the final chapter “when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.” The beginning chapter of our salvation is connected to the last chapter of our life here on earth. This is why the Word of God urged believers to live each day for that great final day. We are to prepare our minds for action by not allowing anything that will hinder our mind as we put it to work for God. We need to have a disciplined mind, alert and ready in our whole spiritual and mental attitude. It is so easy to slip and lose our footing especially when we are going through difficulties in life. We find it very difficult to pull our thoughts together and to be realistic facing our circumstances. The tendency is to go through denials and to lean away from spiritual concerns. We will remain this way unless we set our hope fully in the gracious salvation that will come when Jesus Christ is revealed. We must prepare our mind for the long haul or the short run will kill us. We have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. So let us not get off course the path that God had set for us. Our future hope is not simply a theological doctrine with little or no practical application for it has behavioral consequences in the way we live right now. If we really believe that Jesus Christ will return for the second time, then this belief must make a difference in the way we live. This life we have in Christ should be characterized by obedience. Though obedience does not produce a believer in Jesus Christ, but when we claim we are in Christ then such belief will always produce submission in us as followers of Christ.

Blessings,

Noel De Guzman

www.my-wbc.com