The Word This Week

1 Peter 1:10...

When you’re facing persecution which leads to death, it sure is good to possess the living hope of eternal salvation found in Jesus Christ alone.

This is the point of Peter’s first epistle to The Church.

Our assurance is based upon our election by the Father since before the foundation of the world, our being indwelt by the sanctifying Holy Spirit, and by our justifying faith in the shed blood of forgiveness proven by resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.

Just as our eternal destiny is assured, so is the persecution which is to follow. There has never been a time when The Church established by Jesus Christ has not been persecuted.

This always seems incongruent, because there has never been an entity as helpful and as beneficial to the world. We think, “If only the world would stop to see the work of The Church and the love of The Church, and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

But the world always has and always will refuse to acknowledge Jesus’ beauty and grace and will continue to seek to kill both Christ and His work. (Which is us.)

How grateful we who follow Christ are not only for our salvation as it is proven by the presence of the Holy Spirit of Christ alive in our hearts - but also by the Word of God, which has informed us about the coming of the eternal Christ, His work on earth, and His power to save. We KNOW that we are saved according to His Word.

Imagine the prophets, who knew about the saving work of Christ Who is to come, who were writing of both His reign and His rule and that He would be a conquering King, but also of the fact He would be a suffering servant. How could both these things be true?

How could a suffering servant slain also be an eternal King Who lives and rules forever and ever?

It seems the prophets – being faithful to write as God the Father told them to write – were writing things they did not and could not understand. But now to us it all makes perfect sense. We now know more than the prophets could know in their time, and it further proves God’s Word. What the prophets were writing humiliated the brilliance of their understanding in their time, but now is so obvious a child can understand it.

Pastor Bill