The Devotional – Search the Scriptures – 249




Christ’s Example to Be Followed

1 Peter 4:12-19 – Suffering for God’s Glory

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part, He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter. For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.


Jesus, the Christ, God’s Messiah

The apostle wrote this epistle around 64 AD, about 2 to 4 years from being martyred in Rome. His epistle anticipates serious persecution that will come upon believers, (Jews, Greeks, and Romans) because of Nero who began persecuting the church of Jesus Christ. Persecution almost always begins with moments of light affliction, within local communities and spreads nationwide within a matter of time. The trend of national persecution is evident in our nation today and it is only a matter of time when anyone who is a child of God will suffer serious persecution.

How then shall we live? Certainly, I could say ‘this or that’ but is what I say necessary or relevant or helpful? No, not at all, since most of us are humanly skeptic, rather than Spiritually controlled! Scripture, the Word of the Living God and/or abiding in Christ is the way for any child of God to have PERSONAL confidence and victory over the collapse of a nation whose final breath as a national entity is Christian persecution. Persecution of Truth is not just on the people who God are called and chosen. Persecution is the result of people who shake their fist and wag their fingers and tongues at The Creator God. Our nation is fully involved with angry people who do just this sort of thing.

Our nation hates it when we seek to pray and confess our personal and national sins. We seek reconciliation with the love of God, while the nation despises our local churches and the faith, hope, and love we offer. Seeking to right a sinking ship; many churches on a human plain vice a spiritual level have given itself over to the evolutionary processes that project DECAY on the past PROSPERITY of the church of Christ. How? It begins with ‘disobedience to parental values’ by transplanting depraved evolutionary ideologies (destructive doctrines) in churches that are looking for ‘something new’! 2 Peter 2 is a chapter to review. More on this subject tomorrow.

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