Living For Christ and Not The World Part Three:

We live in a world that tells to push against those in charge and those that do evil towards us, that we must be looking out for number one.  We must make sure that we get our fair share plus a little more.   But as we come to end to 1^st Peter we see peter telling us something different, something that is completely different then what the world tells.  Peter says things like show love to those who wrong you, let the world see Christ through you.  Be ready to give your testimony at a drop of the hat and do so with love and respect.  Let us be honest with each other, it is not easy for the person who has just been belittled and made fun of  to walk away and say I truly do like those people.  The world tells the spouse who has been belittled, abused, cheated on go ahead you are justified in leaving them.  It is normal to mock people who mock us.  But Peter is telling a group of people who are losing everything for Christ stand strong do not give in keep on obeying God and loving people. 

“Finally, all of you should be of one mind, full of sympathy toward each other, loving one another with tender hearts and humble minds. Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate when people say unkind things about you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God wants you to do.”(1^st Peter 3:8-9)  Peter is telling the people  that they need to be of one mind, what is this one mind?  It is loving one another, not just saying it but truly loving each other.  When one hurts, they all hurt, they are not to just take prayer requests from one another and go home and promptly forget them.  No they must take them to heart.  This goes for us as well, we need to begin to really listen to one another, hurt when one hurts, have joy when one has a joyful occasion.  We should not just show up on Sunday out of habit but we need to show up because this is where people really care about us and our families.  We need to share love with each other.

Church should be a place where we come and feel comfortable and make others feel comfortable in the love that God has shared with us.  When asked about what the most important commandant was, Christ responded; “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”(Matthew 22:37-40) We keep coming back to loving God because if we want to live as a Christian we must first love God.  Once we decide to love God then we can make Him the King of or lives.  Then we can allow His love to begin to guide and direct us in how we treat people and our spouses, we then begin to see how much people need God and instead of being mad at people we will begin to feel bad for them and desire that they too will come to know and serve God.