October 2, 2017: Day 43 – I Peter 4

The strength of this passage for us today can be found in vs.7a.  The first part of vs.7 reminds us of this guy below.  

But having said that, keep in mind that we are nearer to the end today than we were just yesterday.  The events that have been happening in our world have really accentuated the sense that we just might be very close to the end.  We are very close, and I can tell you that the believers in Peter’s days were feeling the pressure of the end in a way that we cannot even imagine.

This is why he mentions in vs.12 this “fiery ordeal” that his readers are going through.  The “fiery ordeal” is the Roman government not taking prayer out of school, but rather taking the mother and the father of children and murdering them because they were believers.  The “fiery ordeal” that they were experiencing was not removing the 10 Commandments from a courthouse but rather watching their children be forcibly conscripted into the military with you as a parent not having a say.  The ordeal that the Christians of the first century experienced absolutely made them feel like, or at least certainly made them hope that, the end was near.  

So how do we act and react as the end approaches?  Look at vs.19 where Peter tells us that as we suffer we must entrust ourselves to God’s will and continue to do good while we lay our lives over to God so that His desires would be realized.  This is crucial to understanding how we live our lives in the 21st century.  Trust in the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul, and do good.