To Encourage You

1 Peter 4:10-11 “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

If you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was coming back to earth tomorrow (or that you were going to Him), how might the way you live today be different? What would be the focus of your thoughts? What about the things you might say or do?  Would there be more intentionality?  Would you have different priorities?  Well, if I call myself a Christian, it is this mindset that should dominate my life.  That’s the focus of what the Holy Spirit is saying to us through the apostle Peter in the passage above.  Peter is talking to people who were aware that death could come to them at any time. They were in the extreme minority, these members of the early Church, and they faced a world that was hostile to them. It was a world that had murdered the most righteous One Who had ever lived, and those who hated Him hated them also.  So again, how should they then live? What should be the focus of their life, whatever time there might be left of it? 

In the words immediately preceding Peter’s words above, he tells the believers that “above all” they were to earnestly love one another. This was to be their priority for the rest of their time on this earth, however short or long that time might be.  He explains that that love would be expressed in self-control; a spiritual, prayerful mindset; a forgiving heart towards those who might sin against them; and in willing hospitality, blessing one another with their physical possessions.  But then Peter’s thoughts turn to spiritual gifts.  He makes the believers aware of the fact that they each had them, and whatever they were, they were to use them.  They were to understand that God had gifted each and every one of them in some unique way and through them, God’s purpose for them was that they, in turn, would bless others. Some of them were gifted in their use of words. And it wasn’t just oratory Peter was talking about. It had to do with the gift of sharing the oracles of God, i.e., the things that He had told us in His Word, in a way that would encourage and bless others. Others had serving gifts. They had skills, aptitudes, abilities in the use of their hands that were gifts from God that were to be used to bless others.  It was to be the rule of their lives.

So, does this describe you?  Are you aware of the ways God has uniquely gifted you?  Are you using those gifts to bless those around you and thereby bring the Lord glory?  You see, that’s the Lord’s purpose for us for the rest of the time He has given us.  Jesus reinforced this in the following words from Matthew 24.  It includes both an encouragement to do what He has told us, and a warning for those who will not: “But concerning that day and hour (or the Lord’s coming) no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.  Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”