Christians live their lives as strangers in this world (1 Peter 1,1; 2,11). But what does such a life look like? Peter has three ideas that turn out to be quite radical. The challenge is to put them into practice today: submission in our lives as citizens towards the government; mutual respect in our lives as men and women towards each other and tolerance and justice in our dealing with suffering and injustice in society.
Our hearts are informed by our minds. Our minds are informed by what we hear and see. Our conduct flows from our hearts. If our hearts have come to believe things, this will become visible in our conduct. For instance, if our heart has come to believe that we will not pass our studies, then our efforts will immediately drop to a minimum. And such conduct of course is damaging for our results. Exhortations to work harder will not have any effect. Unless the conviction is addressed that we will surely not pass our studies.
We have started to read from the Bible the first letter of Peter. Peter writes to people who struggle with really tough experiences. Due to these experiences their motivation to live Christian lives might drop to a minimum. Although Peter does not deny these experiences, he addresses the conviction that these imply that there is no real hope. Fuelling their and our hope, he renews the motivation to live a Christian life – so that we can become agents of hope. An important theme!
Join and invite others to watch the service with you! We will read I Peter 1:13-2:3.
Jesus ends his famous sermon on the mount with a couple of warnings. Like this one: ‘small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.’ (Matthew 7,14). This means that if you want to follow Jesus you must be willing to make real choices.
Coming Sunday we listen to this message and think about this important question: ‘How to find life?’
We look forward to see you and discover together more about what Rev. Hans-Jan Roosenbrand will tell us about this exciting topic!