Peter encourages his readers to continue to imitate Christ in his resolve to suffer rather than sin. He instructs them to keep Judgement Day in focus when the persecutors will be judged and when God's people will enter into the fullness of the promised eternal life.
Read 1 Peter 4:1-11
Christians are destined for a glorified, heavenly body after they are finished with their earthly body. Paul longs for his glorified body but wishes that it comes without him dying, that is, when Christ returns. If however, dying means the nearer presence of Christ then he would prefer to be away from his body. In the meantime, until either his death or Christ’s return our aim should be to please Christ, the one we love and adore.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:1-10
Believers are to live in harmony and love with one another and to return blessing for cursing to those who are hostile to them. When they live such a radically different life from the unbelievers around them the unbelievers will ask questions about the Christian faith. Christians are to answer with gentleness and respect, giving a reason for the hope they have in Christ.
Read 1 Peter 3:8-18a
In the Lord Supper the Lord Jesus gives himself to his people that they might have a share in all that he has accomplished for them by his death and resurrection. Believers who eat and drink by faith feed on Christ as their spiritual food.
Read Mark 14:12-31
Christianity is on trial before the unbelieving world. God calls Christian wives to be like Christ in submitting to and respecting their husbands. Husbands are to be like Christ in loving, understanding, serving leadership of their wives who are co-heirs with them of the grace of God.
Read 1 Peter 3:1-7
Baptism was instituted by Jesus Christ as a mark of discipleship for his people. The disciples of Christ include believers and their children.
Read Matthew 28:16-20
Because we live before God and before the world Christians need to live in such a way that will recommend Christ to others. Peter encourages them to imitate Christ who, when treated unjustly, entrusted his situation to his Father who judges justly. Peter holds Jesus up not only as an example but also the Redeemer who through his death on the cross enables God’s people to imitate him by the transformation of their lives.
Read 1 Peter 2:13-25
The Church is not a place to go to so much as a place to belong to. Christianity, though personal, is corporate and communal and we are to give ourselves to one another is service.
Read Galatians 6:1-10
The Church is made up of people who were once in spiritual darkness. By the work of Christ, the Cornerstone, and the mercy of God, these people have come to Christ and have become living stones called to give themselves to God for his glory.
Read 1 Peter 2:4-12
The Church has been given the privilege of the Word of God. It is a privilege that can be taken away if we are unfaithful as God threatens his Church with a famine of the hearing of the Words of the Lord. Our faithfulness must be to cherish the word (the Bible) but particularly, to cherish the Word of the word, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who on the cross took our judgement upon himself when he experienced a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
Read Amos 8
