Standing firm

The New Testament letter of 1 Peter is a letter of hope. Hope to people who are enduring hardships, difficulties and trials. Peter has written to people who because of their faith are being ostracized from their friends and business acquaintances. The people are being pressured to abandon their faith. They are receiving hate mail, have been arrested, and some have had their lives threatened. Someone Peter is writing to has had a friend or loved one killed because of their faith in Jesus. If there ever were people whom we could learn from, it would be them.

Peter is a dealer of hope. He wants those men and women to whom he is writing to be overflowing with hope by reminding them that they are people who have received grace. He then challenges them to stand firm in the same grace they have received (1 Peter 5:12). Standing firm in grace points to a couple of unshakable truths.

First, you are bigger than this. Peter reminds the people of who they are. They are men and women who have received grace. They have not been good enough to receive grace. They did not make the right decision at the right time and in the right way. They were people who God opened their ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to receive his grace. Who they are then is greater than any calamity they face. Not because they are better but because they have grace bestowed on them.

Second, do not waste your crisis. Times of tension and turmoil is an opportunity to remind yourself of who you are, evaluate where your life is, and where it is going. While no one is looking for a crisis, even fewer are learning from their hardship. When you endure hardship and do not learn from it, nor are you strengthened in your faith by grace by it, you step into a revolving door of one crisis after another. Crisis and hardships can be frustrating or formative.

Grace is called grace because it is grace. Grace is God's unearnable favor. A gift to all. Peter reminds those he is writing to who are enduring tremendous difficulty that grace you did not earn is the same grace that enables you to stand firm in shaking times. Stand firm in grace.