Devotional: Become What You Really Are, 1 Peter 1:13-25

In the second half of chapter 1 Peter applies the truth of our glorious eternal inheritance to how we are to live now. He states the basic command in verses 15-16. The God who calls us is holy so our conduct must be holy. Or, as the book of Leviticus states several times, “you are holy, because I am holy.” To say God is holy is to say “God is God,” and so what Peter is telling us is that we need to live what God has called us to be (1:15), what Christ has already transformed us to be (1:19) and what the Spirit continually enables us to be (1:2): the image of God/Jesus Christ lived out in the world. The Spirit takes the Word of God (Jesus) and the word of God (the biblical testimony about him) and applies them to produce the character and acts of God within his people. Because of the “blood of Christ” which has been applied to you, you are radically different than you were before. You have been set free from sin and are already on the winning side in the battle against evil.

Therefore, Peter calls us to apply the resources of the Spirit, the hope of our inheritance and the knowledge of who we are in Christ to our daily conduct by:

1. Setting our minds daily on the resources God’s grace has provided for us to live as God’s image and resist the bad habits of our former lives. We should wake up every morning with a prayer that recognizes what God has provided and a commitment to living in a way that shows God to the world. We will fail at times, but our daily hope is set “fully on the grace” that Jesus will complete at his return. (13-14)
2. Living reverent, worshipful lives before God that recognize that our conduct matters and will be judged by God based on what Christ has done for us and how we have lived out the grace and forgiveness that we have received. Received grace is not a license to sin. That attitude betrays that we have not understood or really received grace. Receiving grace obligates us to living graciously before God and his people. We should be willing to pay the same price that Jesus paid for us because we know that the same glorious inheritance waits for us. (15-21)
3. Loving God’s people. God is not looking for adherence to an endless list of “do’s and don’ts” in our conduct but a life that is patterned after Jesus himself and reflects the self-giving way he related to others. As we walk together with fellow-believers toward Christ our hearts grow to reflect increasingly the love he has for others. As this happens we understand better God’s revelation in Christ and in the apostolic testimony about Christ contained in the Bible. This all works together to produce continual growth in resemblance to God in our words and actions. Love and truth come together. (22-25)

Peter is not calling us to become something were are not. He is calling us to become what God has already made us to be. We have the grace to live as Christ lived. Set your mind on that, commit to him and watch him produce Jesus’ character and actions in your daily life.