So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
1 Peter 2:1

 

The power of these vices has been defeated. . . . Peter does not tell his readers to fight against these evils but to lay them to the side, to get rid of them. We put off our old nature and cherish our new life in Christ by craving spiritual nourishment and growing in our salvation. . . . Our old ways of thinking, our old ways of self preservation, aren’t even an option–not even remotely an option. We are to set them aside, to dismiss them as unworthy of the new life we have been given. Instead, we are to pursue God. We’re to long for His word where He renews us and teaches us of Himself. We are to grow in our new understanding of our new life in Christ and what He has done for us.

 

 

 

 

“I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen— that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles.”

 

And when I reach my final day

He will not leave me in the grave

But I will rise,

He will call me home

The Lord is my salvation

 

Who is like the Lord our God?

Strong to save faithful in love

My debt is paid, and the victory won

The Lord is my salvation

 

 

 

 

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

 

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Now we belong to God, and we belong to His family. The church is a place of belonging. “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:10)