Reaching for the Summit

A desire for the destination is what keeps us going on the journey. On a long, hard road, there are many opportunities to get bogged down or stalled out.

One error is turning a pit stop into the destination. When reaching for the summit becomes hard, we are tempted to aim for a lower peak instead. Peter realizes this temptation and tries to combat it at every turn in his letters, 1–2 Peter. He calls us to remember that we are “sojourners and exiles” in this world, not permanent residents (1 Peter 2:11–12). He questions the errors of false teachers who doubt whether God’s judgment and the New Creation will ever come (2 Peter 3:3-4).

Peter wants to make sure we don’t turn what seems like a delay into a denial of God’s promised future. Don’t trade in your ultimate hope for misguided contentment with the current reality. Christians have been “born again to a living hope” that cannot be defiled or destroyed, not even by immense suffering (1 Peter 1:4–5). However hard the journey becomes, it is worth it. Entering Christ’s eternal kingdom will make it all worth it (2 Peter 1:11).

Peter doesn’t minimize the pain and difficulty of suffering right now. He knows faith isn’t a get-out-of-suffering-free card. He doesn’t try to spiritualize suffering out of existence. He admits the truth—there is suffering. The journey’s not easy. But Peter wants us to know that when we suffer, we can entrust ourselves “to him who judges justly,” just like Jesus did as He went to the cross (1 Peter 2:23). We can “entrust” our “souls to a faithful Creator while doing good,” looking ahead to “when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 5:13, 19).

Suffering is real, but when we understand it properly, we recognize that it’s also temporary. Peter tells us, “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10–11). Just “a little while.” When you’re in the agony of pain, time seems to slow down. But Peter says it is just “a little while” that we suffer in this life, contending with temptations and trials and opposition. On the other side of eternity, this mortal life will seem very short.

Isn’t this always how it is, when we near the peak of a mountain? The twists and turns of the path up the trail don’t disappear as we look back. But they seem smaller. The summit offers a new vantage point on the mountain. We gain a more comprehensive view of the journey as a whole.

False teachers make this mistake—they take the current order of things to be permanent, whereas they take the promised order of things to be a fantasy (2 Peter 3:4). For true Christians, it should be just the opposite. We are not living in reality now while longing for a shadowy, ethereal destination up in the clouds. We are living in the shadows now while longing for the reality, which is a remade world, the New Creation, brought to its full realization by the judgment of God on the Last Day.

This is what a mature Peter offers us in his letters to the churches in 1–2 Peter. He wants us to see that our suffering is serious but temporary, whereas our hope is permanent and eternal. The disciple’s journey has a real destination in a renewed and transformed creation whose light has already begun to dawn in us. Is your mind set regularly on this eternal hope? Are you doing everything you can each day to seek after it and live in light of it?

Prayer Priorities For the Week

Prayer is how we make our requests known to God. It is also how He aligns our hearts with His will. Determine at least three things that you want to pray for this week, then pray for these requests daily.

• I am praising and thanking God for:
• I am asking God for myself:
• I am asking God on behalf of others:

Key Verse for the Week

Memorize and write down the key verses for the week: 1 Peter 1:8–9