Today's DB 1 Peter 1 w/ Lena's Journalin'

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

If the e-mail text you receive is encrypted at all, just scroll down to the end of all of the text and click on Lena’s Journalin’ , which will take you directly to the web-page where you will be able to read the text quite clearly in it’s purposed form.

1 Peter 1:1-25 -
1I, Peter, am an apostle on assignment by Jesus, the Messiah, writing to exiles scattered to the four winds. Not one is missing, not one forgotten. 2God the Father has his eye on each of you, and has determined by the work of the Spirit to keep you obedient through the sacrifice of Jesus. May everything good from God be yours!
A New Life
3What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, 4including a future in heaven--and the future starts now! 5God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you'll have it all--life healed and whole.
6I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. 7Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.
8You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don't see him, yet you trust him--with laughter and singing. 9Because you kept on believing, you'll get what you're looking forward to: total salvation.
10The prophets who told us this was coming asked a lot of questions about this gift of life God was preparing. 11The Messiah's Spirit let them in on some of it--that the Messiah would experience suffering, followed by glory. They clamored to know who and when. 12All they were told was that they were serving you, you who by orders from heaven have now heard for yourselves--through the Holy Spirit--the Message of those prophecies fulfilled. Do you realize how fortunate you are? Angels would have given anything to be in on this!
A Future in God
13So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives. 14Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn't know any better then; you do now. 15As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. 16God said, "I am holy; you be holy."
17You call out to God for help and he helps--he's a good Father that way. But don't forget, he's also a responsible Father, and won't let you get by with sloppy living.Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. 18It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. 19He paid with Christ's sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. 20And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately--at the end of the ages--become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. 21It's because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God.
22Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. 23Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God's living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! 24That's why the prophet said,
The old life is a grass life,its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers;Grass dries up, flowers droop,
25God's Word goes on and on forever.
This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.

Copyright Statement: THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary LanguageThis edition issued by contractual arrangement with NavPress, a division of The Navigators, U.S.A.Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language Copyright © 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.

~ Lena’s Journalin’ ~
Ever felt alone, excluded, abandoned?
If you are in Christ, the Bible says you are NOT alone. Yes, you may validly FEEL alone, but when feeling that way, an enemy is lying to your soul. It is a lie. God says that He will never leave or forsake us. That is the truth. God’s word is truth, THE truth, no matter what we feel or what we’re thinking may be true, but really is not truth.
I bet these early Christians felt very alone, exiled to places where they couldn’t share their faith. They’d just found faith in the Truth (Truth is a person, not an idea), and when they finally found themselves inside of a true and living God, they were now taken captive? When they were freed from spiritual bondage, now they were arrested for it? Come on, right, wasn’t that seemingly backwards? I bet their thoughts could have run wild, with abandonment, etc. The thing is/was they knew Truth as a person, the person of Christ. They knew of His integrity, they knew of His unfailing words to them. What He said He did, period. It did not matter what it looked or felt like.
Thy word IS truth. Let God be true and every man be found a liar. Rom 3:4 Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth.
The truth is, everything that does not match up to God’s word is a lie. That’s a whole lot of lies going around isn’t it? Exactly. John 10 says the thief, the devil, came into this world uninvited, and snuck in a way not provided to him by God. Jesus came in invited, He IS THE WAY. John 8:44 says he (the thief, the devil) has always been a liar and no truth dwells in him at all. If he’s on a mission against God and all that is God, why would he tell truth? Especially if he’s not truth at all?
So, the point?
Yes, persecution of your faith in God will come, to test your faith to see if it is a genuine faith based on knowing God personally, or seeing if your knowledge of Him is just a good idea.
So you profess Christ and are arrested for it. Do you still profess Christ? You profess Christ and people laugh and mock at you, do you still profess Christ? You profess Christ and you don’t feel the ooey gooey blessings and warm fuzzies, in fact now you feel alone, because all of your friends think you are a weirdo, is it worth it? These things are the test of your faith. If your faith has not been tested, it is not true, yet. If you truly believe your life will eventually prove it through testings.
Our Pastor’s wife said to us this week, that the warm fuzzies leave us and the ease of things doesn’t stay so easy as we grow up in Christ. If we want it easy forever, we aren’t wanting to grow up. God wants us to grow up and take a hold of our faith, a living faith in a living God, let it be tested, to see that it is real and really growing. The world is groaning, crying out for reality, truth, eternity. We are the examples of it to the world!
Be holy, as he is Holy, Let His holiness live in your body, Your mind, your spirit, demonstrate His love, His life. Be a Christian, don’t just look or act like one. Be Christ, the best example of Him this world you live in has yet to see!
Go all the way, begin today!

Daily Repetitive Verses:

John 3:17
You know these things – now do them! That is the path of blessing.