Weekly Pursuit – Week 2 of January
Verses:
1 Pet. 2:21 “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving you a model so that you may follow in His steps.”
Excerpts:
No matter how much alike a husband and a wife may be, they will have difficulties with the five troubling factors of temper, disposition, habit, background, and way of understanding. This will be the situation even if the husband and wife love each other very much and are refined, educated people. Sometimes at least they will find the situation intolerable and will quarrel with one another. But suppose a husband and wife both have the divine life and live according to this life. In spite of the differences in temper, disposition, habit, background, and understanding, grace inwardly motivates both the husband and the wife. Furthermore, this grace is expressed in their living. If the mother in law of either the husband or wife observes their way of living, she will find it gracious, pleasant, and acceptable. This is grace.
Peter says, “This is grace.” Then he tells us that Christ has left us a model. The grace and the model are closely related. When anyone observes the expression of the Triune God as grace from within a believer and recognizes that this is grace, there is an indication that this one has become a xerox copy of Christ, the model. To express the Triune God as grace in the midst of unjust suffering is to become a reproduction of Christ. Therefore, instead of saying, “This is grace,” it is possible to say, “This is a reproduction of Christ.” The manner of life that expresses the processed Triune God as grace is not only grace—it is a reproduction of Christ. (Life-study of 1 Peter, msg. 19)