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“for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:2)
When our house is on fire, there’s no sense cleaning the kitchen. That’s one extreme. The other would be to think why make our bed when we are just going to sleep in it again. These extremes each contain a common theme. Surely, there are circumstances that absolve us of guilt or relieve us of our responsibilities.
That can be our thinking when we are being persecuted for our faith or find ourselves in the deep end of suffering. Surely, we can let things slide a bit given the circumstances. We certainly don’t want to call attention to ourselves and become subject to scrutiny and greater suffering. Do we?
Peter is writing to those scattered and suffering, undergoing persecution for their faith. Yet in his salutation, before he even gets to the body of his letter, he urges his readers to obedience.
That’s because his readers are Christians, those chosen by God and sanctified by the Spirit. They are sojourners, citizens of another Kingdom, heirs of a heavenly home. If they have received Christ as Lord, they are to follow Christ as Lord, in private and in public.
Throughout his letter Peter will address this no excuses, no exceptions approach to life for us as believers in a world that is no friend of Christ. Obedience is one of the ways we glorify God and distinguish ourselves as belonging to Him. It is a means by which we demonstrate the lordship of Christ to an unbelieving world and provoke their demanding an explanation of why we live as we do.
We are the blood-bought people of God. We are cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave His life for us. We are the redeemed of the Lord. As such, we are to live lives consecrated to our God and conspicuous of His grace.
Our obedience does not earn us any favor with God. It is by Christ’s obedience that we are saved. We live lives of obedience under the banner of His love. Later, Peter will lay out the relationship of our obedience and Christ’s blood in this way: “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness” (1 Pet. 2:24).
REFLECTION: Obedience means conformity to the will of the God we love. Pray to obey.
Unless noted otherwise, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, copyright ©1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.