Set Your Hope Completely On His Grace
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being self-disciplined, set your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:13; ESV/HCSB)
Peter begins with “therefore.” Therefore, what? “Preparing your minds for action, and being self-disciplined” should be considered a parenthetical. The key phrase here is “set your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” The structure should not lead us to think that there are three things to do. There is one thing to do: “Set your hope completely on the grace.” When suffering, remember that our hope is not here. These people were going through various trials and were being grieved by them. They were being tested by fire. Our hope is not in status, money, education, or occupation. Our hope is to be set completely on his grace.
I want to settle on the word “completely.” Our hope is to be fully on God’s grace. Our hope is not to cut into smaller pie pieces. We are not to be happy with our hope 50% on God, 10% on job, 20% on family, and 20% on materialism. If this is us, then we will be shaken when some of our hope is shattered. Things go wrong with our work and we become depressed. Family members become ill and we lose our hope. We do not have the material possessions that we want or are losing our possessions and we lose sight of God. Our hope is not to even be 1% in anything else but in God’s grace. Our hope is in that eternal inheritance. Our hope is in that spiritual blessings of God. Our hope is on that reserved sign in heaven that the promises and inheritance is there for us.
I think this is where most, if not all of us, fall into sin. Our hope is here. As 21st century Americans and all the possessions we have, we have placed our hope here. And not just by a few percentage points, but our hope overwhelmingly is here in this world. Typically, our hope is in any and everything but Jesus and leads us to having messy lives.
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