Series: Flowers in the Desert
I Peter 5:6-7 ESV
Romans 3:9c-24 The Message
When we are up against a wall and we don’t feel like we have a clear path forward, the best thing we can do is drop to our knees.
When we are struggling and can’t see a way out, don’t wring your hands…drop to your knees.
When everything around you is falling apart and you feel like Humpty Dumpty, drop to your knees.
If you think that sounds counter cultural, you are absolutely correct.
Our modern day culture tells us “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
We have been taught to “stick with it no matter what”.
We are told to “never give up the fight”.
While all of those things may be true in one sense, trying to do everything on our own without God’s help just doesn’t make good sense and doing it on our own is NOT what God has planned for us.
So, even though our culture tells us we need to be perfect and responsible, God made a better way for us through His love.
In I Peter 5:6-7 (the Rock) Peter wrote, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
The Rock wrote that.
Peter was the Apostle that Jesus charged with the care and organization of the early church and that same Apostle told the early church to be humble before God.
The Rock told the people of God in Jesus to stand under God’s protection through Jesus Christ, the Son.
Peter, who denied knowing Jesus three times knew as well as anyone that in time…in God’s time He will exalt us. Peter knew that because even though he failed, and he failed, and he failed again, God had exalted him.
Peter also knew how devastated he was when he failed, and he failed, and he failed again. He knew even though he had failed a Jesus over and over and over again he was allowed to stand before the thrown and give God his anxiety.
He was able to tell God he felt awful that he failed to stand up and stand for Jesus. He was allowed to ask God for His forgiveness.
It was then, and only then that Peter knew just how much God cared for him.
He KNEW God loved him.
He finally understood what true love looked and felt like.
Then, even though he didn’t deserve it (and he knew it), he received God’s grace.
The truth…the real truth is that none of us deserve grace that is so blatantly unapologetically free for all.
Scripture tells us that in Romans 3:9c-24 from The Message, “all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:
There’s nobody living right, not even one, nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.They’ve all taken the wrong turn; they’ve all wandered down blind alleys.No one’s living right; I can’t find a single one.Their throats are gaping graves, their tongues slick as mudslides.Every word they speak is tinged with poison. They open their mouths and pollute the air.They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year, litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,Don’t know the first thing about living with others. They never give God the time of day.
This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin.
God Has Set Things Right: But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.”
What that means to us is that the price so we can enter by the narrow gate (see Matthew 7:13-14) has already been paid. By turning to God we get a free pass.
Spiritual Practice: Receive
Open your hands to receive what God has for you.
In God, Deborah