Following God
1 Peter 1:13-21
“Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’
“If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”
Do you consider yourself a Christian? Many people call themselves Christians because they like the “love story” that it involves. Being a Christian isn’t just a romantic story of a Creator who falls in love with His creation. Being a Christian is a battle, constantly we are battling good and evil.
With that in mind, always be prepared to do battle. In order to prepare, what will you need to do? For one, equip yourself with a weapon. That weapon is the Word of God. We need to read it daily so that we are ready for any battle that comes our way.
If you are in warfare, would you go out into the battlefield one day without putting on any armor or carrying a weapon? You are on the front line, and there comes Mr. Christian walking along the front of the battlefield playing his Nintendo DS, oblivious to the fact that the enemy is right behind him and he is being shot at and being hit from all directions.
Being a Christian IS a battle, not just a metaphorical battle, but a real one, with real casualties and real POW’s. And most of us don’t even care enough to equip ourselves. You wouldn’t walk onto a battlefield unarmed, then why would you walk into your daily battlefield with the devil without arming yourself with the Scripture every day?
Keep ready, fix your hope and trust on God and keep ready every day of your life. If we are going to be obedient to God, then we can’t align ourselves with the devil, we can’t conform ourselves to the world. This world is at odds with Christ, so we can’t be conformed to this world and to Christ. We have to choose one side or the other. We were once conformed to the world in our ignorance, when we rejected Christ, and we were captive in lust and every other wicked thing under the sun. But now we have freedom from that, we are not conquered by lust or any other sin.
Now that we are followers of Christ, we need to conform ourselves to Him. This means we need to try and be Holy like He is Holy. Are you doing what you can to be Holy like God? Or do you call yourself a Christian while being just like the world? How can you call yourself a follower of Christ if every action through the day reflects the world, which is the enemy of Christ?
God will judge you for what you do, so if you call yourself a follower of God then you had better act like it, because you are going to be judged by it. We are not redeemed by silver and gold so we don’t need to concern ourselves with silver and gold while on this earth. We are redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ and that is what we need to focus on every day.
We have such an honor to not only serve the Creator of the Universe, but to be called His children. If we have this great honor, then we need to make sure that we represent Him who we serve.
God has given us so much, and asks so little of us. But most “Christians” are not even willing to give the little that He does ask.
“You shall be holy, for I AM holy”
How much do you even try to be holy?
