Thoughts on 1 Peter - Day 6

                                              1 Peter 2:1-3

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. ² Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, ³ now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.


       My partner in my practice, like me, is getting older and has had some health issues which have made him drastically adjust his diet. He is a food conniseur and can tell you what restaurant to eat at anywhere in the world. Recently he gave me an éclair to eat and I asked him to rate it. He gave it an "8" and quickly told me where to find a "9" and a "10", the "10" being in a little bakery north of San Francisco. (We live in Tennessee), Now he is eating a strict diabetic, low calorie diet and is shedding pounds rapidly. After doing this for a week, he ate a nectarine and he was raving how this was "the fruit of Heaven of which angels partake". He is a little flowery but his point was that after eating grains for a week, something like a nectarine could be seen for the delight it really is. After getting rid of all the junk such as doughnuts, ice cream, M&Ms, etc., the healthy sweetness that God put into His creation could be appreciated for how good it truly is.

       I think there is a spiritual principle here that Peter is talking about in verses 1-3 of chapter 2. At some point, in all of our lives, we receive or comprehend a diagnosis that we are sinners and the life we are now leading leads to death, eternal death - separation from God called Hell. We have a choice to make. Receive and believe the diagnosis and accept the remedy which is Jesus who comes inside, cures us, and radically transforms our life - or reject it and say "I am doing fine", or" the cost is too great", or "there must be another way".

       If we receive Christ by faith. John 3 says we are born again. We start over. We become spiritual babies. There is a scene in Arthur Miller's play, Incident at Vichy, where an accomplished man stands before a Nazi authority in his town. The Nazi asks him for his credentials, in effect his Curriculum Vitae, his list of accomplishments. The professional man pulls it out and gives it to the officer. At this point the officer crumples it up, throws it in the waste can and says "Good, now you have nothing." In effect, when we come to Christ, everything we were, everything we had accomplished, everything our hope was resting in is crumpled and thrown away. Paul would call his works rubbish. Isaiah would call his deeds filthy rags. We stand before God naked, equal with everyone, and babies or beginners in this Christian life and it feels so freeing. Suddenly something like" milk" - the Bible, learning and reading the ABC's of the Faith, is the nectarine which we never realized tasted so good. And as we see the sin shedding from our lives and as we see the new (wo)man developing in us all we can say is Thank You Lord for saving me. Thank You Lord for changing me. Thank You Lord for this great life that I was so unaware of and blinded to before. I will live the rest of my life glorifying You and in thanksgiving for all you have done for me! Amen