Feb 18: 1 Peter 3:18-22
Key Verse: 1 Peter 3:18
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
Devotion:
One of the things we may get perplexed by as Christians is the bad things which seem to happen to Christians in our modern world. We look at how Christians are suffering or how evil people seem to succeed whereas Christians do not. Often we are looking at things from the world’s perspective instead of looking at things from God’s point of view.
Yes, when we look at life from a worldly point of view, we do not fit in very well as Christians. The reason why we don’t fit in very well is because we do things differently from the world – or at least we should be! God does not want us to conform to the worldly ways but to aim for righteousness and living a life in hope for Christ’s ways to fill our lives.
We can look back and wonder why God sent the flood during Noah’s time, or we can look back and ask why people faced hard times when they seemed to do what God asked of at the time. What we don’t always look at is the bigger picture and what is actually causing the issues to start with!
People do! Many people are not Christians and they do not live their lives in a Christ-like manner! We could say some people who call themselves Christians do not live in a Christ-like manner either, but we won’t go there now! Those who live evil or unrighteous lives may well bring that evil into our lives because we are simply near them! This is not God bringing this stuff into our lives, but other people! What we do about it will shape our lives with Christ...
Points to Ponder:
Do you live amongst people who are not Christians?
Have you noticed how their lives sometimes rub off on you?