Boy oh boy does this passage from Peter resonate with me. The warning he gives his audience about slipping back into their old ways is one I wish I would have heard and listened to when I was a new believer. I consider myself a new believer twice in my life. The first time was when I was in high school. I started my journey as a Christian between my junior and senior years. But not long after going back to my final year of high school, I found myself slipping back into my old ways to satisfy my own desires. The very thing Peter warns about in this letter. The second time I consider myself a new believer was much later in my mid-twenties when I decided to follow Jesus again. I remembered very little if anything from my first foray into Christianity, so my reboot in my mid-twenties was much more like a brand-new start.
In this passage, Peter instructs his audience to "Gird their Minds". A phrase that was common to people in that time and culture. Men wore outer robes and would often "gird up" their robes when working or running. This involved lifting the robe and tucking it into their belt to "gird it up" and help them be better prepared for the tasks at hand. This was why the phrase, "Gird up Your Mind" made sense to them. His audience would have heard him saying, "Get your mind prepared for the task at hand." That task? Being Holy just as God is Holy. Like children who take after their parents, Peter was instructing the believers to take after God in their holiness.
This Holiness wasn't a call to perfection so much as it was a call to be set apart. To be different. God was and is the one true God. Set apart and different than all the other man-made gods throughout the ages. Rather than requiring sacrifices from people, God set out a plan to prepare a way to make a sacrifice on behalf of all people forever more. A way for HIM to offer any potential follower a way to be made pure, clean, and Holy. All without any work, money, or deeds on their part. This was very different than any god then or ever. It's that kind of difference that God calls us to follow in as Christians. To live as foreigners in this world. In it but not of it.
Be sure to tune in this morning to hear the Word of God read out loud.
Followed by an explanation of this passage in plain talk that makes sense.
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