Verse: 1 Peter 1:3-5
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Devotional Thoughts:
The idea of life really resonates through these verses. We’ve been “born again” to a “living” hope through Jesus’ “resurrection” from the dead.
Now let me tell you why this is significant. Our lives are bleak outside of Jesus. Outside of Jesus, we are dead – Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…(Eph. 2:1-2).” Outside of Jesus, we are dead. Outside of Jesus, everything we place our hope in is a dead end.
But, through His death and resurrection, Jesus has defeated death. And because He has, we can be born again – and born into the family of God. We, as believers, are children of God.
Points to Ponder:
Because of this, Peter spells out two wonderful realities for the believer. First off, as a child of God, we have an inheritance waiting in heaven for us. Peter says that nothing can happen to it, because God is keeping it for us.
So God is keeping the inheritance in heaven for us, but even more than that, Peter says that God is keeping us for heaven. We are being guarded by God’s power in this life.
What, then, does that mean for us? It means that we are eternally secure.
It means that we should live life with an eternal perspective, knowing that the victory has already been won by Jesus.
It means that we strive, in everything we do, to do it to the best of our ability because we are doing it for the Lord.
It means that we are willing to make big moves – be it geographically, financially, relationally, etc. – because, ultimately, we are secure in Jesus.
It also means that the things of the world never get us overly down, nor do they ever get us excessively joyful, because it is not of this world in which we find our hope.
In what is your hope found?
