A reminder for
today
For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may
put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your
liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. (1 Peter 2:15-16)
Honour all men.
Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. There is a lot to be said about
these verses. But let’s start with you. How are you, my friend? We had a lovely
dash of rain yesterday that came as a very nice surprise. Peter is hard at work
here in 1 Peter 2 giving guidelines and reminding people of how to live as
Christians. We often believe well doing to be a not so important part of Christianity.
When we look at the early church and how the disciples treated other and other
believers, we are often a little of the track.
Peter clearly states that by well doing (good works and treating
other with love and respect) we can silence the ignorance of foolish men. Now if
you think about this and you start to deal with atheists and non-believers you
soon realise that their attacks often go from God to the way they were or are
treated by “Christians”. Now when I say Christians we know there are two types.
Those who understand the Bible and live by it. The ones that honour all men, love
their brotherhood and fears God. Then we have those who live under the banner
of being a Christian but their live resembles something else.
Unfortunately, our atheist friends are fairly general in
their assumptions that all Christians are like that. But I guess it is something
we all do. We judge by race, gender or religion instead of by person. In fact,
we should not judge at all, because it is very clear we are not very good at it.
How do we change the assumptions and how do we deal with the not so Christian
Christians?
This was really hard
for me for a long time. You see I keep looking at my mistakes and what I did in
my past and with that in mind I thought that I had no right to address these
issues since I am the worst of them all. What I forgot is that God explicitly wants
me to stand up against these issues to show His grace and mercy. To show the
world around me that I am forgiven and because of this amazing gift I will
stand up against the assumptions and mistakes of other and be a guide.
You see what better for a previous convicted mistake maker
to tell other of his mistakes and help them not to do the same. I often stop
here and wish I could go back in time and tell my former self what I know now. It
would have changed so much and prevented so much hurt.
So, my dear friend. Be good to other and live by doing well.
Honour all, love all and fear God.
Have an awesome day dear friend of Jesus.
Cheers