Reading Peter (3): With girded loins (of the mind, that is)

Therefore, preparing your mind for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation og Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13 [ESV]

So fasten your belts--the belts of your minds! Keep your self under control. Set your minds completely on the grace that will be givn you when Jesus the Messiah is revealed. 1 Peter 1:13 [NTE]

We are to live our lives in readiness for the return of Jesus. This is Peter's message here, as it was also for Jesus (recorded in Luke's Gospel, 12:35).  Gird up your loins. Be ready. Fasten your belts. Understand that, as Jesus said, you do not know the day or the hour, so be ready! The revealing of Jesus the Messiah might happen at any moment.

So this is an attitude thing, right? This is a matter that begins in the mind and heart. It begins with allegiance. Who do you call Lord? And what has he told you to do? It's really that simple!

But, of course, it's not that simple. Reason being, we have mixed up hearts. We ebb and flow in all things, as Screwtape knew well. This is why I'm disturbed by worship songs that speak of our wholehearted love for God. Most of the time it's just playacting. The lies we are least ready to call out are the lies we tell ourselves.

So here's how I would speak to myself in order to be ready. I would say to myself, "Self!"

Christ is risen! He has defeated death, and secured your future inheritance, which is stored up for you with God, awaiting the great day of the Messiah's return! In the meantime you have the Holy Spirit to help you do consistently what you could never do at all on your own. You can set your mind on things to come. The good news is, it's coming for sure! Pray it! Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as in heaven, Father God! Long for the day and pray for the day and envision the day and be ready for the day, because the day is surely coming!

 But remember why it is that Peter says, Prepare your minds for action! The action he is talking about, I would suggest, is the purpose for which you were saved in the first place. What did he say back in verse 3? "For obedience to Christ."

Now we asked back at the start, what does "obedience to Christ" look like? Drawing on the words of Jesus we might well say, it looks like love. Drawing on the words of Peter at verse 1:22, we might say, "Love one another earnestly from a pure heart."

Apparently, as Christians it is possible to speak of doing something from a pure heart, even though that reality is seldom experienced by Christians or anyone else. But perhaps our lack of pure-heartedness is a result of our lack of faith. Do we really believe that in Christ we have been made pure?

Here we must go back to the start. Peter said, "for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood."

Sprinkling with his blood is symbolic language that speaks of having our sins forgiven through sacrifice. When Jesus went to the cross, did he really do so on our behalf, as a means of somehow allaying our own guilt, so that we might be found spotless, even despite, according to our own daily reckoning, our many spots? Peter's answer, in concert with the whole of the NT, is a gigantic YES!

I think Peter would agree with his compadre Paul that we should reckon ourselves dead to sin (Romans 6:11). We should have confidence in the reckoning of God through Jesus, who prayed from the cross, "Forgive them, Father. They don't know what they're doing."

All this, I say, is part of girding up the loins of our minds and being ready to obey Jesus and live lives noteworthy for sacrificial love. I have a hunch Pete's going to have more to say about all this in chapter 2!

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Reading Peter (Part 1)
Reading Peter (Part 2)