Christ is the Difference

"Once you were no people but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy" (I Peter 2: 10).

Read: I Pet. 2:6-12; Deut. 14:2; John 1:12; Gal. 4:5-6, Eph. 5:8; Col. 1:12-14.

What Is God Saying?

Peter was always out in front. John and Peter were the first to hear that Jesus was not dead. They both ran to see if, in fact, the tomb had surrendered its victim. John was younger and outran Peter, but it was Peter who went in first and saw the evidence that was to change the world. Peter was also the one who folded in the time of crisis, denying that he even knew Jesus. In His great compassion our Lord chose to go to Peter first in His post-Resurrection appearances. He knew Peter must be suffering because he had denied his Lord. Peter was the first to preach the Gospel (Acts 2). Peter never wavered again, preaching and teaching the Good News to Jews and Gentiles until, during the terrible persecuti0ns of the Emperor Nero, he was crucified. He saw the glory of the Transfiguration. He was living proof of the power of the resurrection for he was a totally changed person. He preached what he knew. His conviction came out of the fires of testing and the lessons of experience. He was not passing along something he read in a book. He was living out the life and the love of Christ.

How Does This Apply To Us?

What better person could there be to counsel Christians everywhere about the inevitable suffering they will have to endure while being faithful to the Lord in a hostile and pagan world? He knew it firsthand. What better person to tell about the difference the living Christ can make in a person's life? Peter went from boasting to shameful failure in the space of a few hours. Then, from cowardly denial to courageous preaching when he saw the evidence and felt the power of the Resurrection.

Peter was a changed man and he could speak with the authority of personal experience about the difference Christ makes. His own life was the evidence. First, he knew the reality of God's "but now" Gospel. That is why he could speak to others so convincingly about the "but now" that comes by faith. All our prayer is based on the confidence we now have in the mercy of God, the mercy we have forever because we are in Christ.

Pray With Me

Dear Lord, the words ‘but now’ are filled with meaning for me. Before, I walked in loneliness, but now I walk with the living Christ. Before, I was dead in trespasses and sin, but now I have been born again. Before, I groped in the darkness of fear, but now I walk in the light of faith. Before, I had nothing except the death that my sin had earned, but now I have everything in the life that God has given. Let these words, ‘but now,’ stand as a wall against the arrows of self-accusati0n. Let them be a door sealed against doubt. Let them be as a shaft of light to drive back the shadows. Let me live in the joy and freedom of Your own Word: "But now ... you have received mercy."

Father, I know that I grieved You while I lingered in the far country, but now I would serve You in willing surrender. I wandered in sin, but now I would walk in righteousness. I gave no heed to Your pleading, but now I love Your Word. I lived as though my life had no need of Your sustaining mercies, but now in Christ I see how much You loved me all the time. I thank You for the ‘but now’ that is right now. I thank You for that which gives me confidence as I live in the presence of heavenly love and in the promise of eternal hope.

Through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

Moving On In The Life of Prayer

In prayer we look at ourselves as God sees us. Coming to God in prayer we see ourselves as those in whom God has brought about a merciful change. We live on the sunny side of ‘but now.’ That makes a powerful difference when we pray. It is praying from a position of strength. It is putting the accent on hope. It is drawing on the inexhaustible riches of Christ. It is claiming the blessings of redempti0n and forgetting the frustrations, the emptiness, and the poverty of life and spirit that we knew on the other, shady side, of ‘but now.’