Friday the 16th

1 Peter 2:1

¹Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.

 

Rid yourself of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander……well…that frees up a huge chunk of the day! I love this passage because what it is saying is change your way of life, not just in a small way, but down to the very fiber of your being, it lays out the driving force behind a lot of our worldly desires. It shows us the way to live by pointing out what we must leave behind. As sad as it is to actually say, the world today does not promote truthfulness, love, selflessness, and building up of others. So we find ourselves behind the eight ball. How do we excel in the world, yet play by God rules, not the worlds? It is easy to say rid yourself of this or that, but to actually do it is the hard part. Like most things with the Lord, it must be done fully, and there is the key. God is not a half measure God. He is an all in God. He does not give miserly, he gives abundantly. He gave his only son so that we might have eternal life, so that is how we must live. All in. We cannot set aside most of our hypocrisy, or give up all malice, but hang on to a little deceit. We must model our lives by the example God gave us in his Son. We must give to him, as he gives to us; and there is the answer. You see, when you turn your life over to the Lord, you will excel. You will start on the path to being the best, not that you think you can be, but the best that God knows you can be. Why? Because God works for the good in the lives of those that love him. What God blesses, cannot be less than the best. Does that mean that you will become everything you want to be, that you will get everything you ever wanted. No, but you will become everything the Lord NEEDS you to be, and that my friends is spectacular, and beyond anything you can conceive. So work to rid yourself fully of the negatives, it is a work in progress, but you have to get the process started!

 

Peace

Brian