To Encourage You

1 Peter 1:2 “May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”

As you enter each day and interact with others, what is your mindset towards them?  Is your thinking directed primarily toward them, or are you thinking more about yourself and how you look to them?  There’s a vast difference.  

In Peter’s salutation to the believers that he is writing to in his first epistle, notice his opening thoughts.  He comes out of the gate desiring that “grace and peace be multiplied” to them. Do you realize what a wonderful encouragement this would be to someone who read it? Do you realize what a wonderful encouragement this should be to YOU, for Peter, more than that, the Holy Spirit of the Living God through Peter, is saying this very thing to you. That’s what He wants for you, and as He fills our life, that’s what you and I will truly want for others.  

So, what is this saying to us, and what should we be expressing towards others? One thing is that grace would be multiplied to them.  Grace is God’s wholly unmerited favor.  It’s the incredible blessing of knowing that our salvation is a wonderful gift that we have not merited in any way. You see, before Peter says the words above, he addresses his hearers as the “elect.” That means they were chosen by God from before the foundation of the world as objects of blessing by Him, not because of anything they (or we) had done, but solely because of His love.  Paul put it this way as he opened his letter to the Ephesian church: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even AS HE CHOSE US IN HIM BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, that we should be holy and blameless before him. IN LOVE HE PREDESTINED US FOR ADOPTION TO HIMSELF AS SONS THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, ACCORDING TO THE PURPOSE OF HIS WILL, TO THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORIOUS GRACE, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:3-6). It’s all grace. It’s all unmerited. It was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).  And God would have us to know that “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him GRACIOUSLY give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).   

How wonderful is this? How can we even give words to it? And if that is the perfect and righteous God’s desire for us, who deserve none of it, how can we wish less for those who are in our lives.  Our desire, like Peter’s and like the Holy Spirit’s, should be that grace would be multiplied toward them, just as it has continually been multiplied to us. 

And if we really desire such things for others, it will be expressed in our thoughts, words, and deeds towards them.  It will be an inclination to bless – no matter how others might treat us.  It will be a desire to encourage, help, comfort, and demonstrate love to them in many ways – not because they deserve it, but because that’s how God has loved us.  

And then there’s peace. The peace of God should be our desire for them, for that’s God’s desire for us. As Jesus said to us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). Troubled hearts are what the world gives.  Anxiety, fear, depression – it’s what the world and the prince of this world would have for us.  But God would have us to have peace.  And so anytime we find ourselves in conflict with another person, anytime we find that WE could be a source of anxiety to them, might we know that that’s not what God would have for us, and it’s not what He would have us to express toward them. Rather, it would be that peace be MULTIPLIED to them.  If that’s what we really want for them, then we will be those who are ministers of peace toward them.  We will realize, like the apostle Paul, that in all the past troubles we’ve faced in life we were being equipped to bring peace and hope to others who may now be experiencing those same kinds of trials.  Paul put it this way in in his salutation to the Corinthian church: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5).  

May God give us a heart that desires His multiplied grace and peace towards others around us.  May it be such desires that influence our thoughts, words, and actions towards those whom God has sovereignly placed in our path.