Hope: As It Is in Heaven, So Be It on EarthSample

Good Day. Welcome to week 2 of our daily devotions, where we dive into the theme of Hope. Our Scripture for this week is verses from 1 Peter 1, and today we begin with verse 3:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy, we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”

Nobody believed in Jesus on that dark Friday He was crucified. His followers, with many others, have seen the signs He did – God’s Kingdom in action, have listened to His teachings, and even heard Him saying that He is going to be killed and that He will rise. Even so, nobody believed in Jesus the day He died. Women went to the tomb to anoint his body. Men were hiding out of fear for their own lives. If this happened to their leader, what would happen to them?

Within weeks, a rapidly growing movement began in Jerusalem that claimed that this Jesus, who was killed on a hill just outside the city, was now the world’s true Lord. “Lord” and “son of god” were, among other titles, reserved for Caesar, the ruler of the Roman empire. Now, these titles were used to describe Jesus. On what grounds did these people believe Jesus is the true King of the world, the son of the true God? Nobody believed until there was nobody. The resurrection of Jesus is the only logical and historical explanation that makes sense of the rise of this movement and its message.

In today’s verse, Peter writes about the resurrection of Jesus as the foundation of our faith and about what it means. I want to highlight three things that we will explore this week. The first one, as already noted, is that the resurrection of Jesus shows him to be the true King of everything. Secondly, the resurrection of Jesus confirms that a new creation has begun. Jews like Peter grew up with promises that God would renew His whole creation and raise His people from the dead. God does not replace. He renews. The resurrection of Jesus confirms that God has begun to make good on His promises. And thirdly, through the resurrection of Jesus, we have been given a new birth into this “living hope”. This merciful God who never gave up on His creation and His plan with mankind is now our Father. New Creation is our inheritance, and we are called to be part of this hope-bringing mission. This is God’s abundant mercy over us.

We will unpack this more during the coming week, but let’s start with Peter by praising God: We praise you, Creator God, for your abundant mercy over us. We honor you, Lord Jesus, as the King of everything. We are excited to be part of your renewing mission. In Jesus' name. Amen.