Encouragement for Believers from 1 Peter 1:3-25

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The following is an encouragement to believers from Daniel Stevenson from 1 Peter 1:3-25.
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What an amazing Gospel, and truly great salvation we have through Jesus Christ. Looking at 1 Peter 1:3-5 we see grace unmeasured poured lavishly on God’s children. This good news we have seems foolish to the world, but to us, it is a sweet and precious treasure. In it we see the love of God in giving his beloved Son for our sin: that God the Son would humble himself and share our human nature live among us, suffer, and die. Christian, this salvation we have is without compare and more precious than words can describe. 

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Again let us look at this great salvation we have in Christ! Even the great trials and evils of this world are incredibly small in comparison. Do you have sickness and sorrows? Troubles and tribulations? These are only for a little while; they are only temporal while our salvation is eternal.  The fruit of these trials is to our benefit and God’s glory, that our faith may be tested, refining it and making us more like Christ in the process. To the world, its troubles are crushing and great, but to the Christian they are, though hard and painful, as a pestering gnat when compared to our wonderful Saviour and the salvation he has bought.

6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, 7 so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

Now, in light of this good news, Christian, strive to live in a way befitting this glorious Gospel--not out of compulsion, nor some sense of keeping or earning salvation based on your own merit. Strive for holiness because of the cost at which you were purchased. 

18 knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. You were bought with precious blood; so precious so powerful! When you are tempted to sin, to give in to temptations within and without, look to the cost of your salvation. It was not with vain perishable things you were bought, it was with the eternal. It was with the blood of the pure spotless lamb, Jesus Christ.

I will close with a quote from Robert Murray M’Cheyne: 
“That a price had to be paid shows that we were in a state of slavery.  We have been bought back from it, not with silver or gold, not with corruptible things, not with things that rust and grow old. Rather, with the precious blood of Christ, the blood of a spotless lamb. Christians should remember this, and fear to sin. Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear Peter says, forasmuch as ye know the price your redemption. Oh! Christians, here is the grandest argument to persuade you to dread sin. Remember how you were redeemed. When tempted to sin, look to the cross.  Then say, these wounds were made by the wrath due to my sins. Shall i love sin any more, or trifle with it any more? Shall I love that which kindles the fires of hell, and crucified my Lord? I have been washed in His blood so that I might be made holy, and shall I go back to sin? Shall I not rather look to the Cross, and keep from sin?”

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