CLEAR COMMANDS FOR THE BELIEVER (I PE. 1: 13-25)

As my friend Frank and I are working our way through I Peter, I couldn’t help but notice the very practical instructions that Peter gives in this first chapter. Here is the text —

Have you found that sometimes we just simply need to obey some commands? Our culture seems to demand explanations for everything. But the believer in Jesus learns — maybe very slowly — that our God doesn’t always explain the WHYS to His children.

In chapter 8 of The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has Screwtape give the following advice to Wormwood, his understudy demon: “Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

Here are five very clear commands which are for all believers at all times in all cultures facing any circumstances in life:

1. Set Your Hope on What’s Most Important! (v. 13)

2. Don’t Give in to Your Pagan Desires! (v. 14)

3. Be Holy in All You Do! (vv. 15-16)

4. Live Out Your Life as Godly Foreigners Here (vv. 17-21)

5. Love One Another Deeply! (vv. 22-25)