A Call to Holiness pt 3
01-03-2019
At the end of chapter 2 Peter talks abut Jesus, our ultimate example. He explains His conduct and how He took on all our sins so that we could walk in righteousness and healing! Because of what Jesus did on that cross we can now return to Him, our Shepherd and Guardian/Overseer of our lives.
Then he begins by calling all believers to humility, holiness, submission and service. He says in the same way that Jesus conducted himself, WE are also to do so. He speaks to wives… vs 1-2 “In the same way (as Jesus would), you should patiently accept the authority of your husbands.” This is so that even if they do not obey God’s Word, as they observe your pure, respectful conduct, they may be persuaded WITHOUT A WORD by THE WAY YOU LIVE!
I absolutely love this because when I look at this, I don’t just see it has husbands and wives, but I see it as with anyone God places in our lives as an authority figure, and yes, sometimes that authority will be a woman. Many religious and non-Christian circles have used these few verses to beat women into ungodly submission. Seriously! I have seen it many times within many close relationships throughout my life. Being a woman who preaches and teaches to both men and women I, myself, have been persecuted by many and yes, misled family and religious circles included! But this is totally not Peters point. Peter is not telling women that they are under the man, that they are to submit at every command even to the point of abuse and they are never to lead. He is telling us that we are to conduct ourselves as Jesus did! Jesus understood his umbrella of authority – God covered Him, and He was fully submitted to the will of God. Yet, God allowed Him to make His own choices!
Submission – hypotasso (hypo – by, with, in, among, under) (tasso – arrange, ordain, set, appoint = position) = it’s a Greek military term meaning “to arrange [troop divisions] in a military fashion under the command of a leader”. In non-military use, it was “a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden.”
To walk in submission (be it to husband, leadership, government, boss, whoever is your authority figure at the time) is to voluntarily give of self as you assist in assuming responsibility and help carry the burden. It is a ‘cooperation’ of people, not a control and rule from one person.
In other words, Peter is telling us that we are to walk just as Jesus walked, loving others, cooperating and working side by side allowing those to lead us as God leads them and when we are walking out our life with this conduct, respecting even those who aren’t respecting us, loving even those who aren’t loving us back, we will win them to Christ simply by what they see, not what we preach at them! They will be persuaded WITHOUT A WORD by THE WAY YOU LIVE!!
Peter goes on to explain that the beauty we should seek is not just outward appearance, but that we should constantly have Him on the throne of our hearts. Our inner beauty should reflect outwardly! How? By carrying an incorruptible quality: I see this as not allowing all the things that Peter talks about in chapters 1-2 to affect us (See last 2 blogs); by walking in humility, meekness with a peaceable spirit.
Let me tell you this… NONE of this is possible if we are not fully, intimately connected to Christ! This is all His character, this is all kingdom mindedness! This is why we have so many in the body of Christ running people away from God instead of drawing them closer, because most in the body are not truly connected in intimacy with Christ! The Word tells us in James 4:8 “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands and make your hearts pure, stop being double minded!” and in John 12:32 “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself!”
When we believe in Jesus Christ, He makes His home inside of us, when we lift Him up by portraying His character, actions and love to this world people are drawn to the realness, the authenticity and the love in you because He is drawing them to Him IN YOU! Oh, the lives that will be rocked when we start allowing Christ in us to show outwardly!
Peter goes on to tell the men to understand, respect and value their wives as equal heirs in life and as we do respect, understand and value each other then we know nothing will get in the way of our prayers. Walking in humility, forgiveness and love is vital if we want to our prayers to be heard. Many verses in the Word tell us this! Peter stresses many times throughout his writings that we are to stay pure, humble before God, walk in holiness and honor!
He ends this chapter reminding us in order to love life and see good days we must refrain from speaking deceit, negativity, subtility, etc. and we must keep our thoughts aligned with the Word of God avoiding the evil (bad nature). We must walk a life of reverential fear towards God and let go of the fear of man! Verse 13 says “Who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good?” When the fear of man leaves your life, it brings about a whole new level of surrender to God and you no longer fear full obedience to anything He asks of you!
We should continuously acknowledge the holiness of God in our hearts and always be ready to stand up for our faith!!
Father this has been an interesting journey of learning to crucify the flesh, to lay aside all these fleshly emotions and truly surrender the throne of my heart to You! Holy Spirit continue to go into the depths of me and bring to light anything in me that is not of Christs character so that I may be Him to all those I encounter. I know I will continue to make mistakes and my crazy mouth or feelings may get in the way at times, but I ask that You immediately bring my wrong actions to my attention and give me the strength to cast down anything that is not of You, God! Forgive me for allowing the flesh to take over in so many ways recently and purify my lips and humble my character once again. I love you, Father, and I fully surrender to the pressing and crushing it’s going to take to bring out the new wine of Your Kingdom! In Jesus name, Amen.
**Side note: I am a FIRM believer in godly order and submission! Please don’t take this teaching as a woman saying submitting to our husbands is not right. Besides God, the first one in authority over me is my husband and he has much voice in my life. But we also co-lead and are in this mission of life together knowing that God created us to walk side by side not me under his foot.