First Peter, y’all. Read it because it’s pretty sweet. I loved getting to be taught through the book of 1st Peter last week at KI. We got to see so much cross-referencing and it really made things clearer and penetrating. One of my favorite parts of my time at the institute has been getting to see the Bible come to life through awesome teaching and in-depth study, really getting to understand the links between the Old Testament and the New. I’ve gotten to see the New Testament concealed in the Old and the Old Testament revealed in the New like never before. It’s been transformative in my approach to scripture and my study of it. That impacts my heart and stirs my affections for the God who breathed this Word into being (2 Timmothy 3:16). When His Word penetrates, we experience the reality of it (Hebrews 4:12) – they aren’t just words on a page; they are truth that our lives depend upon. With that perspective, studying any part of the Bible can be hugely impactful. Disclaimer: this post is pretty lengthy bc I’m gonna go through all of 1st Peter bc it’s too good to leave stuff out! I learned so much and I hope you can learn some of what I learned in reading this!

Let me share with ya what the Lord has shown me this weekend in my study and learning from 1st Peter. As believers, we can be affirmed in our hope of salvation through Jesus Christ’s holy blood sacrifice on our behalf. Looking at Hebrews 9 (HEBREWS – incredible book about Jesus, His role in our lives as High Priest), it’s an awesome picture of what Christ has done for us. He went into the holy place sacrificing His own perfect blood for our sake once and for all. We no longer have to go to an earthly priest to confess our sins and have him make sacrifices on behalf of us for each individual sin, or make blood sacrifices of goats and calves like people had to do in Old Testament times. Blood, innocent and perfect and holy blood, has been shed ONCE AND FOR ALL. That is Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who was the perfect Lamb who laid down His life for all of us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8). Praise God that our hope in salvation doesn’t waver by our actions – it is fixed on Jesus, the object of our hope, who has done what was necessary once and for all. Through Him, we have eternal redemption if we call upon the name of the Lord in faith (Romans 10:9-10). Nothing we do saves us (Ephesians 2:8-9), only the grace of God.

An interesting concept for me to begin to understand on a deeper level in this study was that of unconditional election. It is very clear in scripture that God has chosen His people before the foundation of the earth (Ephesians 1). There is a beautiful picture of this unconditional election we are overwhelmingly blessed to receive in Ezekiel 16. It blew my mind, really. We were helpless, naked and covered in our own blood, without hope, in an open field. But then God passed by and said to us, “Live!”He entered into a covenant with us and we became His. Then He bathed us with water, washed off our blood and anointed us with oil; he clothed us and adorned us with gold and silver. But we trusted in our own beauty and played the harlot. We were unfaithful to the very One who rescued us from death. He called us into life while we were wasting away in our own shame. Yet, we so quickly took His blessings and made them our gods. We found our identity in things rather than the One Thing. We were adulterers and adulteresses, yet God was and is faithful. He remembers His covenant of old and establishes an everlasting covenant with us in sending His Son Jesus. He forgives and offers us life abundant. Abundant life is found in faithfulness to our One True Love, while hurt, pain, discontentment, shame, and guilt are found in unfaithfulness and adultery. Beautiful picture of how we do nothing to deserve God to call out unto us, “Live!”

We rebel time and time again to our own desires and lusts of the flesh that wage war within us against the Spirit living inside us. We know who God is, but we often don’t really KNOW Him. We believe these things about the Lord that we read in scripture but we don’t really TRUST them. Huh. Yet He patiently pursues our hearts and doesn’t leave or forsake us because we don’t love Him back like we should. We would have no chance if that were the case. But praise God that Ephesians 2:8-9 is true – it is by grace we are saved; nothing of ourselves. But really understanding that should change our heart. Why would we love the world? It steals our joy, causes us heartache and pain, and ultimately destroys. Why wouldn’t we love God and let the things of the world fade knowing they pass away anyway? But the Word of the Lord endures forever. Hold fast to that and don’t waver – God’s Word reveals our hope. Our hope is Jesus and that hope is an anchor for our soul (Hebrews 6:19).

That fixed hope should for sure impact the way we live. We are called to be holy as God is holy. Christ fulfilled the law like we never could to offer us freedom from the punishment of transgressing the law. We pursue righteousness by faith and out of a deep love for our Savior. Living for the world is futile, but doing the will of God has eternal significance (check out 1 John 2). Christ offers us life and victory and freedom and joy and contentment, but we don’t experience it by living to experience all the world has to offer. There is so much more. We cannot serve two masters. To love the world (things of the world) and to love God is an oxymoron. It just doesn’t work – we will be divided; we cannot serve two masters (Matt 6:24). Wowowow that’s just a pretty summarized version of the transforming and penetrating truth found in chapter one!

Throughout 1 Peter, Peter exhorts us to persevere in trial and suffering. In chapter one, he offers us a great picture of sanctification and the reward we receive through it. Fire and gold. Gold is refined through the fire – the impurities are burned away to ash, but what remains is the pure gold. That is what God does in our lives through sanctification – it might be painful at times but there is great reward that does not disappoint.

We grow in godly character by the work of God’s Word in our lives. Sanctification happens when we truly taste the kindness of the Lord, then allow that understanding to motivate us to put aside the lusts of the flesh and allow the Word to penetrate our hearts and move us to action.

Peter affirms us in our identity as believers – 1 Peter 2:9-10 is so powerful. That is who we are in Christ. And not only does that tell us our identity, but it tells us our calling. Incredible. Then Peter goes on to encourage us in godly living. He exhorts us to respect and honor all authority in our lives. He tells us to use the freedom God offers us as bondslaves of God. LOVE that metaphor. A bondslave would be freed from their master but chose to stay with them, under their authority, because they loved them and trusted them. This is a picture of obedience to God, not out of obligation but out of true love and deep affection. If you ever feel a little ehhh about our government situation in America, read verse 18 in chapter 2. No matter how we feel about those in authority, we are called to respect them and pray for them!

Chapter three talks about the harmony intended between a husband and wife in marriage. Wives are to submit to the leadership of their husbands, while husbands are to honor their wives. The two should be one and compliment each other. Ephesians 5 goes into more detail about the beautiful picture of a Biblical marriage relationship. When we let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts (Col 3), there is not conflict and quarreling in relationships (James 3-4).

We are called blessed if we suffer for the sake of righteousness (cross-reference beatitudes in Matt 5). We are charged to present the gospel message of Jesus, the hope within us, with gentleness and reverence (we are to be salt and light to our dark world – cross-reference Sermon on the Mount in Matt 5). Physical baptism doesn’t save us; rather, it is the baptismal picture of Jesus – His resurrection, which has the power to save us.

Chapter four… Christ suffered in the flesh but committed no sin; we, as Christ-followers, are called to the same purpose – to live to the will of God rather than to indulge the lusts of the flesh. We do the will of God by living in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit so you do not gratify the desires of the flesh; when we walk by the Spirit it is evidenced in the fruit produced in our lives (Gal 5:16-26). The defining characteristics of life in the flesh should be no longer; those who live in this way, nonbelievers, should be offended by the way we live to a higher calling. Our calling is to do the will of God – to be discerning, sober in spirit purposed in prayer, fervently loving one another, hospitable without complaint, employing our spiritual gifts to serve one another, stewarding the grace of God well.

The Gospel isn’t just for us to be saved for eternity; it is for us to be saved now – for our sanctification and proclaiming of the gospel, glorifying God in all the earth. We, as Christians, are called to discipline ourselves for the sake of godliness (1 Timothy 4:7-8). God bestows a calling upon us that is higher than anything achieved in and of the flesh – joy and contentment is found in this living (look at 2 Timothy 1:8-11).

Peter exhorts the church elders to shepherd the flock of God well. He points to our hope in Christ’s second coming, where we will receive our reward in full. He encourages younger Christians to respect their elders in humility, going on to encourage believers to have humility before God. We are to be always on the alert about the devil, who is our enemy seeking to destroy us. We are to be encouraged in standing firm in faith and resisting the devil. In our suffering, God will confirm, strengthen, and establish us. Stand firm!

In light of all this truth packed into 5 simple chapters in 1st Peter, there are plenty of questions we should be asking ourselves. I’ll just list a few… Where do we place our hope as Christians? Does that hope ever waver? Should it? If we profess faith in Christ and receive salvation, what is our identity? Do we not only say we believe it but do we trust it in our core and allow that identity to manifest itself in the way we talk and act?What does it mean that we are referred to as aliens and strangers? (1 Peter 2:11) What do we learn from Peter about suffering and suffering well? What is our high calling as Christians, mandated by God, in light of receiving salvation? How can we practically stand firm and persevere according to what we’ve learned in studying 1 Peter?

I’ve never been super worried about apologetics and knowing how to defend my faith against other religions because I honestly haven’t had a whole lot of encounters where I had to. Growing up in a Christian school from pre-k through high school graduation, I didn’t have a whole lot of friends who disagreed with me. Granted, I did have some, but most were Christians who grew up southern baptist just like me. I had the huge privilege of growing up in an awesome Christian family that not only taught me God’s Word but really lived it out, too. I don’t ever want to take that blessing for granted. But for a lot of us who grow up in Christian families and environments, we can grow up believing in God and His Word just because it’s what we’ve been taught. We can know more truth from our upbringing than we find for ourselves by reading it in the Bible on our own. But we have access to scripture, the actual living Word of God (Hebrews 4:12).

What do we do, then, when we enter into a world that can be hostile to Christianity and tries to attack the Biblical Christian faith? What happens when someone denies the deity of Jesus or the validity of Scripture? That’s where apologetics come in.
Researching the validity of the Bible is pretty neat, actually. Manuscripts, Archaeology, Prophecy, and Statistics (MAPS) all heavily point to the validity of Scripture. Dead Sea Scrolls found years after the Bible was canonized support its accuracy. Archaeologists have found plenty of evidence of people and places referenced in the Bible. The prophecies fulfilled from Old Testament to New are staggering. Statistically, the Bible was written by 40 different authors on three different continents yet retains its fluidity and cohesiveness.

Really, just to prove the deity of Jesus is huge in a conversation with someone who disagrees with the Biblical worldview. Jesus is thought by many to have been a great moral teacher but nothing more, or a god rather than the God. However, that logic just doesn’t make sense. A great moral teacher wouldn’t have been a liar, claiming to be God. Jesus claims to be one with God the Father (John 10:30), so He wasn’t a god… He was either God Himself or no God at all. Some might even doubt His death and/or resurrection, yet no argument stands. God is sovereign and no matter what comes up against Him, His Word, and His Gospel, nothing can disprove it. The Bible has stood the test of time. It applies to our lives today. If we believe it to be true (and we have no reason not to), it changes things. Our life has to be impacted because of what the Bible says. If 2 Timothy 3:16-17 is true and all Scripture is God-breathed, like the very exhale of God, then our life should hang on every word within this book. The God of the universe has given us His Word to reveal Himself to us, instruct us, convict us, to SAVE us (James 1:21). What are we to do with it now?? Abide in it (John 15), delight in/meditate on it (Psalm 1:2), do what it says (James 1:22), handle it accurately (2 Timothy 2:15). And while we’re at it, we can dig into why we can believe it to be absolute truth. Scripture proves itself true internally time and time again. But we can externally find so much evidence in support of its validity. Secular writers who lived during the time frame of Jesus and the gospels, like Josephus, give accounts confirming what is contained in scripture. We have every reason to believe, not much reason to doubt; but any skepticism we’re left with gives us the room to have faith in a God of love who has given us His Son and His Word and when we accept Him, gives us His Holy Spirit. He knows the depths of our hearts and yet He desires to be known by us. And one of my favorite promises in scripture is in Jeremiah 29:12-13… that when we seek Him we will find Him if we seek Him with all our heart. He will be found by us. Amen!

Today’s the big day. V Day ! ! !

We all love the happy sappy love stories. It’s what movies are made of. Our fav rom coms. The Notebook. The Vow. The Lucky One. Nicholas Sparks isn’t half bad at writing love stories. But the greatest love story ever written is far more meaningful than a Noah and Allie kind of love… I know that’s saying a lot, right? What could be better than such a beautiful story of faithfulness over so many years??? The answer: a story of utter infidelity.

A bride that was sought out and chased after, and yet chose to run back to the painful heartbreak of one night stands. She was loved perfectly but she rejected that love out of guilt from her past. She couldn’t erase what she had done, the filth she’d allowed to wallow up inside of her, so she chose to be the runaway bride. She humiliated her Suitor and cheapened His love by returning to the lesser womanizers and getting her temporary happiness from their empty words and meaningless intimacy.

She sacrificed her own body in efforts to find satisfaction but couldn’t keep any lasting joy. Only left with scars, hurt, and pain, feelings of brokenness and heartbreak defined her. She couldn’t accept love from Someone pure who would pursue her without hesitation and call her beautiful. She didn’t deserve that. She only deserved fake love. She didn’t deserve to be known deeply and loved actually. She couldn’t bear to enter into a marriage covenant with that kind of Person and bring all her junk and baggage. She couldn’t become one with Him when she had already been with so many others. The guilt overtook her and so she continued to go after temporary pleasures thinking she had no chance of anything more.

But her Groom didn’t leave her. He pursued her every time she ran. She couldn’t escape His love no matter how hard she tried. She could never build up a wall of guilt and shame so strong that He wouldn’t break through it. He never forced her to walk down the aisle and say “I do,” but He never left the altar. Instead, He sacrificed Himself on the altar, laying down His life for His bride.

The bride, finally understanding that her Groom was never going to leave her no matter what she did and didn’t require her to do anything for Him to earn His love, came down the aisle to Him. She fell at His feet, sobbing uncontrollably and uttered the words, “I do. I am Yours and You are forever mine.” Her Groom didn’t rebuke her for the long road it took her to get there. Instead, He said to her, “You are my beloved. I have loved you with an everlasting love. I will never leave you or forsake you. You can never outrun my love.”

He placed the ring on her finger and her name was changed. Moreover, her life was changed. She became one with her Groom. She experienced the fullness of joy in life with Him.

Yet, she had times where she would forget His love. She would make mistakes and then push Him away because of shame. And every time, He would stay true to her and go find her in her mess to bring her back. He wouldn’t allow her to be stuck in shame but would remind her of her true identity. She just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Why did He love her so? Why did He desire her love? Because He IS love. That’s who He is. 

That bride is the church. It’s me. I run and run and run from Jesus to other things I think will fill me. I live in the world, clinging to so many material things that can never satisfy. But the Groom, my patient Savior, calls me to Himself. He is faithful and constant in my wandering. His character never changes. As I pursue the world and everything in it, He pursues me. As I settle time and time again for lesser, filthy, temporary things, He offers me the best thing – Himself.

I grabbed a hold of Him some time ago and my whole life was changed. But to be honest sometimes I forget the love He’s shown me and go back to other things. But He won’t sign the divorce papers, people! His love for me doesn’t depend on my actions. It’s dependent on His character. And He IS love. The more broken I am, the more I understand the love with which I’ve been loved. Christ’s bride doesn’t just get a name-change. We get a life change and an eternity change. That’s the gospel. It’s available to you. All ya gotta do is Romans 10:9-10. U don’t gotta b single no more.

Thnx 4 reading my fav V-Day story – double meaning bc love and sweet victory, am i right?

Until next time,

Swhite

HEBREWS. Wow, what a book. It was a blessing for sure to be taught verse by verse by a very knowledgable teacher at the institute this past week. There is so much depth in the book of Hebrews, but I just want to share a little bit about what has stood out to me this past week.

One, the book majorly talks about how Jesus is our High Priest. The High Priests in the Old Testament would make sacrifices on behalf of the people to cover their sins. Throughout the OT we see so much about sacrifices of unblemished animals because from the beginning it is made clear that “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.” (Hebrews 9:22). In the Old Testament, then, how did people receive salvation? Before Jesus came… It says throughout the OT and throughout Hebrews 11 that they had faith and it was credited to them as righteousness. So, they were saved by grace through faith. That sound familiar? We are saved by grace through faith in what Christ has done – His death and resurrection. The people of the OT were saved by grace through faith in what God would do through Christ. Coooooool. God wasn’t just waiting around wondering how it was all gonna work out. He had a perfect plan from the beginning and it happened all according to His timing.

But throughout the OT, these righteous people still had to make sacrifices for their sins – they sacrificed spotless animals to make propitiation for their sins. This was in obedience to God, in faith. But several years later, Jesus came to earth, taking on flesh and blood, being made in the likeness of man. He bore the penalty for our sin, taking it upon Himself, to shed His own perfect blood and be the propitiation for our sins. WoW. That’s incredible. That’s the Gospel. But we gotta preach it to ourselves every day. It doesn’t get any less powerful or less beautiful. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, by nature children of wrath deserving of death, yet at the proper time God made us alive to God in Christ Jesus. Read Ephesians 2 bc it’s fiyaaaaaa. If we are in Christ, this is our status — we were DEAD, now we’re ALIVE.

So Christ came to earth in His full deity to experience full humanity for us. He came to die and rise again – to defeat sin and death and offer us life eternal. But, He even came just to get it. To experience life as we know it. So, y’all, we don’t have some God who is distant and far off. He is personal and right there with us in our pain and sorrows and struggles. He gets the little things and the big things and everything in between. He cares, He sympathizes with our weaknesses. That right there humbles me, encourages me, and just stirs my affections for the God of the universe who was revealed in the life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He wants relationship with us. Do we really get what that means? He wants us to come to Him, to sit at His feet and to love Him because we really get His love for us.

I wanna get it. And being here in Branson, MO at the Kanakuk Institute, I’m really starting to understand more and more on a deeper and deeper level. It is pretty stinkin sweet. But there is so much more to learn, more to grow in, more to understand. That’s the thing. We’ll never arrive at understanding everything and being perfect… we always have more to learn, more to be refined in. There’s beauty in that – in the wealth of the Gospel. Not some earthly materialistic thing, but this wellspring of life that keeps on giving and never runs dry. Where does my treasure lie? I find myself over and over again, consciously or more often, subconsciously, treasuring so many other things above God and His Word. Good things can distract us and keep us from the BEST thing. Know what I’m sayin? It’s rough. We have to constantly be honest with ourselves and ask what do I value most? God or His good gifts? Do we pursue the source of joy or just its result? If we pursue happiness itself, it’ll always slip our grasp; but if we pursue the source of all joy we have all we need.

My fav passage of Scripture, well, one of them, comes from Hebrews 12:1-2 “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” That is a picture of what the Christian life should look like. It’s a charge to believers, an encouragement to us.

I love to run. If you know me you know this fasho. Well, a couple months ago I started getting shin splints because I was running with old shoes. Felt the pain, but avoided it and pushed through it without acknowledging the problem. So flash forward a couple weeks and I tried to rest a little bit to heal the shin splints. Didn’t wait long enough though, and felt the pain again right when I tried to run. HUH. BUMMER. Literally so distraught. But it kinda gives me a visual for this passage. When we allow sin in our life to go unchecked or distractions/encumbrances/hindrances to persist in our life, we suffer. The longer we let it hang on, the more detrimental it is for us. There is always pain in dealing with sin or hang-ups in our life, but the longer we avoid them the more pain they cause us in the long run. Huh, pun intended.

My shin splints came on because of a fault in my running of the race so to speak. Now, I have an injury which causes me to not be able to run for a whole 4 weeks…….shooooot are you kidding? Yeah wish I was. So when we allow that sin or those hindrances to hang on, the result is that they cause us to be ineffective and steal our joy of running the race. I LOVE to run, but right now I don’t get to enjoy it and I’m not an effective runner, obviously, because I have to stay off of my shins for 4 weeks. Our sin doesn’t disqualify us from the race but it does make us ineffective for the time being and causes us to miss out on the joy to be experienced in running. 

Well, God is using the little trials in my own life to reveal more of His heart and His Word to me and I’m just soaking it up. I’ll admit my attitude isn’t always spot on. Ha. But I’m so thankful for those times that the Lord stops me in my tracks to say, “Hey, I love ya and I care more about your heart and your relationship with Me than your comfort.” Huh, my “wisdom” pales in comparison. Good thing we have Hebrews to give us some awesome insight into life and the deeper things of God.

Just another typical week in Branson—Mind. Blown.

I’m pretty stinkin  long-winded, so if you actually have read this far, I thank you.

Over and out,

Swhite