The Trinity in I Peter 1:2

I am reading 1 Peter along with my church and I got stuck on the second verse:

. . . To God's Elect . . 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Here is the same verse in Amplified version: 

2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace [that special sense of spiritual well-being] be yours in increasing abundance [as you walk closely with God].

This verse lit up in my mind like a light bulb--here in one verse is the description of how each member of the Trinity acts in redeeming man-kind! 

We see God the Father--He has the foreknowledge (since He is not limited by time at all, let's say the PRESENT knowledge) of all mankind's responses to Himself.  He knows how each man will view the creation He has made, His right to own and rule that creation, and how they will misuse it. 

He knows all the lies each man will be faced with concerning His loving nature, His plan to redeem creation, and whether each man will accept those lies or press past them to Truth. This is the All Knowing Father God    .

We see the work of the Spirit--The nature of God nudging every heart to know and respond to God's truth (obedience). The Spirit that grows the nature of Christ within our souls.  The Spirit that makes God come alive in our hearts, illuminates the inklings of understanding we have, and gives us "pushes" in the right direction.

We see the work of Jesus--the act of sacrifice, the blood that gives us the right to approach God.  When Jesus died, it was not a show, it was a transaction for the human race, open for all to accept. He being perfect and taking on an undeserving death opened the door for us to accept God's nature inside us and be able to stand in His absolutely perfect presence. 

Peter ends with " Grace and Peace be yours in abundance"  Those words translate "divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life; God's power in our life.  Peace translates:  prosperity:--one, peace, quietness, rest, + set at one again.  It's more than quietness of mind--it's wholeness in every way.

There, one verse, three parts of the Godhead, I think it's cool. 

Knowledge that heals--a familiar Friend

“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
    but he will heal us;
he has injured us
    but he will bind up our wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day he will restore us,
    that we may live in his presence.
3 Let us acknowledge the Lord;
    let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
    he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
    like the spring rains that water the earth.”  Hosea 6:1-3




Knowledge is everywhere.  We can find out almost everything there is to know about anything from our phone in our hand, or the device on the counter.  We can find directions to any place in the world, know times and locations for any service, or read gossip about people around the world.  There is almost anything we can not know in this century and knowledge is increasing exponentially. The coming 5g network is planned to rapidly increase knowledge.  This time was predicted by Daniel in Chapter 12:4:

: 4 But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”


Yet what is our world like with this increase of knowledge?  We have wars, school shooters, ISIS, a government paralized by internal fighting and power struggles.  We have plagues in Africa like Aids and malaria, Chollera and other diseases that are preventable and yet they persist.  We have young people who bully each other on line, or watch porn, or are addicted to their parent's pain killers. 
Our world is a mess and now we know more about how messed up it is in real time.

So, is it important to have knowledge--yes to a point but it is never enough to know information--knowing a solution is more important.

When something is broken--and under warranty, I take it back to the manufacturer for replacement or refund.  Our world is broken--it only makes sense to seek the Owner and Maker of our world--The Lord. 




Fixing our world takes more than our knowledge--We need God's knowledge, or more specifically, knowing Him.   Knowing about God is not the same as knowing Him.  God never intended for us to fix the brokenness of the world.  He enters a person's life, individual by individual and by their choice.  He then can work through them to change the world.  So knowing Him personally is paramount to fixing the world.

The word for "Acknowledge" above is not a token recognition.  It's not a statue of the 10 commandments, or a flag, or attending church.  It means intimate knowledge--knowing as a familiar friend.  It means allowing God to invade what your knowledge tells you and replace it with His superior knowledge of the world.

We will see more increases in knowledge in this century.  But we will not see peace, love and joy, until people choose to know God.

32 Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.
Daniel 11:32

Picking up the check

Ho 3:1 ¶ And the Lord said to me, Give your love again to a woman who has a lover and is false to her husband, even as the Lord has love for the children of Israel, though they are turned to other gods and are lovers of grape-cakes.
 Ho 3:2 So I got her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley;
 Ho 3:3 And I said to her, You are to be mine for a long space of time; you are not to be false to me, and no other man is to have you for his wife; and so will I be to you.

So our extended family went out the other night, brother-in-law, Dad and step-mom, cousins, and my crew.  We had a good dinner and like always, there's a little shuffle for who will get the check.  It plays like a secret agent movie--Mom makes a bid with the waitress, maybe my Dad grabs her arm next as she goes by.  It's a little friendly game that says, "Hey, I love you guys more--this round".



I thought of this when I read Hosea chapter 3.  The book of Hosea is the story of a man that God commanded to marry an unfaithful woman.  He cares for her children while she roams around and finally winds up enslaved as a prostitute.  Her apathy and unfaithfulness reflected the nation of Israel's cold hearts toward God, as they worshiped idols.

In chapter 3, God tells Hosea to find his wife and buy her back.  After all that she had done to hurt him, betray him, embarrass him, abandon him, God wanted Hosea to take his hard-earned money and free her from captivity.  God wanted Hosea to say, "I love you more"--and prove it with his wallet.

This woman had nothing to offer, and nothing to give.  She could never come close to picking up this check.  Hosea simply paid for her freedom out of love and obedience to the Lord.

Humanity is like Hosea's wife--we have nothing to offer God, He is sufficient without us, and we have not been faithful to even come close to loving and obeying Him.  We have to rely on His love to pay for our freedom from the bondage that sin ensnares us.

Like Hosea's wife--we will only be free if we remain with God, letting Him not only pay the price for our sin with Jesus' sacrifice, but also remaining close and faithful to Him.  Only then will He pay our "tab".