1 Peter - Following Jesus Sample

These days we have highlighter pens. We can underline words or type in bold. We have lots of ways we can show that something is really important. In Peter’s day, if you wanted to emphasise something, you repeated it. And repeated it again. And again. In today’s verse, Peter repeats another command he has given before: ‘love each other deeply’. This is vital too.

• In fact, loving each other deeply must stay right at the top of our list of priorities. Which little phrase tells us that (v. 8)?

There are lots of things that can trip us up spiritually. But Peter seems to think that bad relationships within the church family may be the most dangerous of all. ‘Above all’, we must keep loving each other deeply.

• What does Peter say here about why believers should ‘love each other deeply’?

We will encounter ‘a multitude of sins’ as we relate to one another in the church family. Sin always puts relationships under pressure. I want my way. You want yours. I behave badly. You do too. Selfishness, pride and bad temper so easily tear us apart. What can stop relationships within God’s family being destroyed by sin? Peter’s answer is love, for ‘love covers over a multitude of sins’. When something is covered over, you can’t see it anymore. If my sins are covered over, you won’t look at them any longer.

What do you see when you look at your brother or sister in Christ? Do you just see a long list of all the ways that person has hurt you and wronged you? Maybe you can scarcely see the person Christ loved and died for anymore. Yet that is how we should see one another. Above everything else, we must love one another deeply. When we do that, we will be quick to be gracious and quick to forgive.

Our love for each other does not pay for our sins – only Christ’s death does that. But God loved us enough to treat us with grace, and we are to love enough to pass that grace on to each another. We are to stop counting sins against one another. We are to stop keeping a record of wrongs. The way we love each other should remind people of the way Christ has loved us.

Pray

Thank God that love can cover a multitude of sins. Pray that would be a reality in your life and in your church family.