Beloved, without a doubt, these are challenging, sobering times in which we live as Christians in a wicked world. It is by God’s mercy in Christ alone that He has delivered any of us from this very wickedness to which we were once enslaved (1 Pet. 2:9-10) . And in His ongoing kindness, through our study of 1 Peter, our Chief Shepherd is certainly preparing us for the inevitable reality of suffering as His people in this world.
One example of this inevitable and intensifying hostility against Christians is highlighted by Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., in a recent blog-post: Can Evangelical Chaplains Serve God and County?-The Crisis Arrives. The situation Dr. Mohler describes highlights the fact that the lines between right and wrong, truth and error, light and darkness, Christ and Satan, are becoming more and more clearly drawn in our society. The result is that the price Christians must pay in faithfully following Jesus Christ is, and will become, greater and greater.
Such realities ought not to alarm us, nor surprise us. But we must “arm ourselves” with sober, Christ-centered thinking and living. We must embrace the reality of suffering in the will of God (1 Pet. 4:1-2). And we can do this through faith, in the great joy and hope that our glorious Lord and Savior has suffered for us, and is now reigning over us – and over everyone, and everything, everywhere, for all time (1 Pet. 3:18-22). Our future is certain and secure in Him! And what a blessing to walk and grow together in Him with you.
God is faithful, and His grace is sufficient to sustain us, in all His will ordains for us.
Greg