Today’s passage: 1 Peter 5:6-14
Helpful thoughts:
- We are to humble ourselves. God is the one who does the exalting.
- Anxiety is not hard things happening. Anxiety is how we are thinking about hard things happening. The reason we can cast our anxieties on God is because He is in the work of caring for us. He is going to exalt us in the proper time. Faith in God and in His process (Which includes obedience to His commands) wipes away our anxieties and fears.
- Satan is not the causer of all suffering. This means:
- He is not to be blamed for all of our hardships. Sometimes it is the fault of others. Sometimes it is our own fault.
- He is looking for times of weakness, distraction, anger at God, etc. to attack.
- He can be resisted, even during times of great difficulty.
- Resisting him will not automatically result in the end of our suffering.
- All suffering is for “A little while” and will be followed by eternity with Christ!
- “Babylon” was most likely a code word for the city of Rome.
Questions to consider:
- What would be the difference between humility and pride during suffering? What would they look like?
- Why would obedience also be a part of exercising faith in God and in His process? How would that also remove anxiety?
- What are some ways we could come to understand our enemy better as a result of reading this passage? How do we sometimes blame him for too much? Too little?
- How much of a “Little while” will our suffering feel like after our first 10,000 years in eternity?