“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.” (NIV, 1 Peter 3:18)

Hello again. What a glorious opportunity we have today, to share in writing and speech the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What the ancients desired to know and see – experience and touch – we have in abundance beyond what they could have imagined or thought.

If someone from the Old Testament or pre-1900 A.D. era, could see what we have today in Christ in churches, literature, song, ministries, healing, counseling, crusades and gatherings, they would be speechless.

And then there’s the personal ministry of Jesus. Coming to believers (and unbelievers!) to take them into deep intimacy and relationship, revealing himself to them in grace (1 Peter 1:13; John 21:18). An expanding and accelerating personal ministry by the Lord as the world and church converge on the threshold of the Millennium.  

Make no mistake about it, Jesus is here, today, offering treasures of himself to the body of Christ you and I do not want to miss.

The world is doing everything it can to drown out, distract, and crush the move of God in this late hour of church history. The airwaves are filled with the gospel of this world and the news it brings.

Its message is despair, hopelessness and fear.

But God is thwarting the spiritual kingdom of darkness and shining the light of the love of God in the dark places of the hearts of those he is calling and choosing.

But be of good cheer, Jesus is doing a work in his church unlike any time in history, and will continue to nurture and prepare his sons and daughters for increasing intimacy and union with him.

Jesus is personally committed to you and me. He will complete the work he started in us. He is faithful when we’re unfaithful.

He knows how to access the deep and wounded areas of your heart and mine, to heal the broken places, and create a lifestyle of humility and obedience.

He will plant new seeds in your garden, seeds that birth forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness of care and love. We will come to know the goodness of God and cherish forgiveness and repentance.

You and I will learn the Lord’s voice in the midst of a world bent on sin and sinful practices. You and I will offer the light and life of Jesus Christ to those who would otherwise find themselves resigned to their fallen fate.

You and Me

As you and I grow and mature in Christ, our nature – body, soul and spirit – will become more and more like the “gospel words” we write and speak, by the transforming and sanctifying work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A fresh wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing upon the church today. Let the Spirit of God unfurl your sails and take you out of the harbor into the deep waters of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Don’t let the chords of bitterness and disappointment keep you tied to the dock, or, the sandbars of shallowness keep you anchored in skepticism and cynicism.

And don’t let the reefs of trauma and despair separate you from the deep waters of Jesus Christ.

Jesus knows how to prepare your vessel, you, to transit the harbor to the deep currents of his ocean. He will ensure your vessel is seaworthy and properly supplied to weather the journey ahead.

Christ, the Path

This is the heart of the gospel – we would be changed from glory to glory into the likeness of Christ in the great adventure of the deep oceans of God.

How else will the word of God be written on the fabric of your heart and mine? Certainly adventure, wilderness and discovery are part of the journey making us who we become in Christ.

It was a part of his journey and certainly will be a part of ours.

How else is faith, confidence and trust imparted into the deep recesses of our being? How else do we come to know him who has truly traveled the journey we long to apprehend?

And how else can he access the deep areas of wounds and sins we harbor for cleansing and healing?

What an unimaginable privilege we have in Christ – to sail with Jesus into the deep oceans of God.

Sidelined?

Those of you watching and waiting on the sidelines, I encourage you to begin to receive your inheritance in Christ today.

I beseech you, do not disqualify yourself from receiving the grace of God. He has an unimaginable supply waiting for you and me.

If you feel you’re a smoldering ruin, Christ has the solution for the challenges and dilemmas you face. He knows how to take ruins and to start fresh and create something new. He is creator God.

His grace and love will not leave you in your condition, but will call you unto himself, and reveal his nature to you, in grace, toward holiness and purity.

Jesus has set a banquet table just for you. Let him seat you, and minister to you the deep cries of your heart. He will not disappoint you.

And do not worry about disappointing him. He knows our frame and the bondages we submit to, willingly and unwillingly. He is not ashamed to call you his son or daughter in whatever state he finds you.

Works of Iron or Clay?

The writing of the word of God in the essence and depths of who we are and what we believe is not accomplished through memorization, hard work, practice or diligent discipline.

Those may produce an outward measure of goodness, and head and heart knowledge, but not the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

It is only through the grace, care, and love of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the body of Christ (of which he is the head!) deep and lasting transformation into his nature can be accomplished.

Only the Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit and the fathering of God, can we become the men and women we were designed and destined to be.

Only holiness can impart and produce holiness. Only righteousness can impart and produce the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

And only Christ can bring to death the sinful practices of the lower nature in you and me and birth new life.

Only He can change our “works of iron,” into “treasures, in vessels of clay.”

(We become works of iron by embracing sin, judging one another, and believing and practicing lies about oneself, others, and God. It is the natural design of the fallen nature we wrestle with at one level or another.)

Works of iron create a world apart from Christ. It is in stark opposition to the saving care, grace and love of Jesus.

The strong appetites, desires, and passions of the flesh, passed from generation to generation, are the breeding ground for works of iron.

And Christ was not immune from the possibility of yielding to the temptations of the flesh passed down to him in his generation through Mary and becoming a “work of iron.”

Christ is the first and only man to complete the journey to perfection in God. The book of Hebrews and other New Testament writings capture the dramatic story of Christ in that journey.

Christ faced not only temptations from the outside, but, temptations from his own flesh as well. (Ephesians 2:14 – 15, see an interlinear)

(Please remember, he was the second Adam, “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered.” (NIV, Hebrews 5:8))

Only Christ can lead you into the wilderness of his care, love and grace. Only Christ knows how to access the deep wounds and sins in your life and mine.

Only Christ knows the deep secrets we hide. Only he knows how to access those areas “in the moments of exposure.”

Only he can transform works of iron into treasures, in vessels of clay. And only he can redeem the clay, making it a living breathing sacrifice of his body.

Suffered Once for Sins

The picture Peter is painting with a broad brush, 1 Peter 3:18, is not the story of Calvary. It is not the story of Christ’s crucifixion at the hands of the Jews and Romans. And it is not the story of his subsequent resurrection after three days.

It is the story of Christ’s journey to perfection, being fathered by God, made complete and whole in God.

Hebrews 1:3 aptly describes the results of Christ’s journey and fathering by God, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” (NIV Hebrews 1:3)

This is Christ’s journey Peter captures in 1 Peter 3:18. My friend, this is not about Calvary and the sacrifice Christ made for us at the end of his public ministry.

No, this is about Jesus Christ, being made into the image and likeness of God, his father, by the hand of God, through the journey and adventure of God his heavenly father walked him through unto perfection.

First Peter 3:18 captures the essence of that journey.

He brings it to your attention and mine because that’s Peter’s journey and our journey as well.

Though you and I and everyone else will not complete the journey to the depth and magnitude of Christ, who never knew sin, it is still the journey and destiny before us.

As I mentioned in my last post, theologians struggle with the meaning of 1 Peter 3:18, specifically, the part about being put to death and made alive in spirit.

The struggle is understanding how one can be put to death in body and made alive in spirit in the same breath. The Greek wording does not intimate time between being put to death in body and made alive in spirit. It’s one event.

The answer is not far from discovery when Jesus opens the door to the treasures of his word and reveals, in grace, the journey he’s called us to enter into.

The apostle Paul goes into great detail, clearly laying out what it means to put to death in the body and made alive in the spirit – it’s called the baptism of Jesus Christ enumerated in Romans Chapter 6 and in scores of other places throughout the New Testament.

I plan to do a detailed and exhaustive series on the journey of the Lord Jesus Christ – the making of who he became to be.

The New Testament is replete with the human journey of Christ – “8 … he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (NIV, Hebrews 5:8 – 9)

Unlike us, who wrestle with certain sins time and time again, and strongholds and the like, sin never took root in Christ, yet, he faced the same weaknesses of the human condition as we, and put to death the appetites and desires of the flesh, once and for all, and was made perfect.

Blessings, Drake

(NIV) Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblical, Inc.™