Read chapter in full: biblegateway.com/passage/?version=ESV&search=1Peter+002
 

Chapter 2

¹⁸ Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. ¹⁹ For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. ²⁰ For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. ²¹ For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. ²² He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. ²³ When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.²⁴ He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵ For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

REFLECTION:

1. Chapter at a Glance: Peter encouraged believers to grow spiritually as they received the calling as God’s chosen and holy people. Believers therefore are to live holy lives and to submit to authorities and masters, even when this involves suffering as Christ suffered.
2. None of us likes to be unfairly treated. It is most frustrating when we can’t do anything about it. In this passage, Peter calls for submission even when we are treated unfairly. Peter went on to tell us that we should do what Jesus did when He suffered unjustly.  Jesus didn’t retaliate, or hurl insults back at those who insulted Him.  What Jesus did was to entrust “Himself to Him who judges justly.”
3. Peter did not always understand that Christ’s disciples should expect to suffer unjustly. When Jesus first announced that the Messiah must suffer and finally die unjustly in Jerusalem, Peter attempted to stop Him. (Matt 16:21-23) But now Peter understands that out of the innocent suffering of the Saviour, God worked out our salvation.  The suffering of Jesus was not meaningless; it was permitted that through it good might come.  Therefore Peter teaches that if we would commit ourselves into God’s hands, we can be sure that not only justice will be done for us, but also that our suffering will serve the cause of God’s grace.
4. Have you ever experienced unjust treatment or hardship because of following the Lord? Pray for courage to walk “in his steps” even in the face of suffering, today, this week, this month.

PRAYER:

Stay with God for a little longer.  Continue to converse with God and listen to what He wants to tell you.  Then write down any thought and/or prayer in your spiritual journal.

HYMN:

We Will Stand Our Ground – www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyHmQkN5QL8

Read chapter in full: biblegateway.com/passage/?version=ESV&search=1Peter+001
 

1 Peter

Introduction

The apostle Peter was one of the twelve disciples Jesus appointed and taught during his time on earth. Peter spent the final years of his life and ministry—in the early 60s AD—as a leader of the church in Rome. When he learned that churches in other Roman provinces (all located in what is now Turkey) were experiencing persecution, he wrote to urge them to remain faithful to Jesus. Peter’s letter was delivered by Silas, a man who also worked with the apostle Paul (see Acts 15:22–17:15). Peter introduces Silas and explains that he helped to compose the letter.

After the opening, the letter has three main sections:

1. Peter first tells his readers to be holy in all you do. As Gentiles they once lived in ignorance (they did not know the ways of God). But they are now a holy nation, part of God’s own people, and are called to a new way of life.
2. Peter then explains how this way of life will impress those who might accuse and persecute them without just cause.
3. Finally, Peter acknowledges that his readers are suffering for their faith, but he explains that this is only to be expected. The Messiah himself suffered, and believers all over the world are facing the same challenge. The followers of Jesus are waiting for the day God will visit them, and even in their suffering they can show they belong to God.

www.bible.com/zh-TW/bible/111/1PE.INTRO1.NIV

I Peter Chapter 1 (ESV)

¹³ Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ¹⁴ As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, ¹⁵ but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, ¹⁶ since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” ¹⁷ And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, ¹⁸ knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. ²⁰ He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you ²¹ 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.

REFLECTION:

1. Chapter at a glance: After a brief greeting, Peter praised God for the salvation of those who suffered persecution. He urged them to remember the price of redemption and to live holy lives.
2. Peter’s call to holiness can be confusing and intimidating. We are often bombarded by the media depicting “holy” people as stiff, sexuality repressed, boring, lifeless, self-righteous, judgemental, and deeply hypocritical.  Yet to be holy is to be transformed into Christ’s image.  Peter talked about “be holy in all your conduct”, what does it mean practically?
3. Jot a quick list of all you have to do today (or tomorrow). How could you begin to tackle this list with the goal “be holy in all your conduct”?
4. Pray specifically from your list that you would be holy and would improve relationships with those around you.

PRAYER:

Stay with God for a little longer.  Continue to converse with God and listen to what He wants to tell you.  Then write down any thought and/or prayer in your spiritual journal.

HYMN:

Make Me Holy – youtu.be/YR0QKyKNgZw

Read chapter in full: biblegateway.com/passage/?version=ESV&search=James+005

James 5 (ESV)

The Prayer of Faith

¹³ Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.¹⁴ Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. ¹⁷ Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. ¹⁸ Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

¹⁹ My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, ²⁰ let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

REFLECTION:

1. Recall a time when you came very close to wandering from the faith? Who helped bring you back?  Spend some time revisit that experience and all your emotions then and now.
2. Is God putting someone in your heart that is in the “wandering from the faith” situation as you were? How would you help him/her come back to the faith?
3. Pray for the people in the church and in your cell. We are all broken people—physically, emotionally, spiritually,—and we need each other in the community of faith to pray that we might be healed. Ask God to give us a spirit of harmony, acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, and love so that we would care for each other and witness God’s power.

PRAYER:

Stay with God for a little longer.  Continue to converse with God and listen to what He wants to tell you.  Then write down any thought and/or prayer in your spiritual journal.

HYMN:

One Voice – youtu.be/Au_Znfrjab4

Read chapter in full: biblegateway.com/passage/?version=ESV&search=James+004

James 4 (ESV)

¹¹ Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. ¹² There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

REFLECTION:

1. Setting goals and making plans can be good. The temptation, however, when we plan is to think that we are in control of our lives and our future, which pushes God away from our lives. And when God is not at the centre of our planning, we will find that we are not participating in His story—the things that He is doing in this world. Our lives and the future are in God’s hands. We need to come humbly to God and carefully seek God’s will for our lives.
2. What plans do you have for tomorrow, this year or next ten years? Are you willing to submit all of them to God so that you can be involved in His work for His glory and honour?

PRAYER:

Stay with God for a little longer.  Continue to converse with God and listen to what He wants to tell you.  Then write down any thought and/or prayer in your spiritual journal.

HYMN:

Sovereign – youtu.be/4jZesDWssd0