“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (ESV)
Therefore: As Peter writes, he indicates that he is shifting is thoughts, but dependent on what he just wrote. Don’t look at this verse on its own, but in light of what Peter has just written: in light of the inheritance we shall receive, the grace of Christ, our salvation, the Good News of Jesus, etc. It may even help to go back and read verses 3-12 again.
Preparing your minds for action: So often, the Christian life becomes quite sedentary. Our action simply becomes going to church, and maybe a study. Peter is here calling us to be ready to put faith in motion. How often to we think about sharing our faith with others, encouraging and pointing other believers to Christ, and basically being salt and light to a dark and hurting world?
Being sober-minded: When we think of being sober, the first thing most of us think of is not being drunk. That actually paints a pretty good picture here. When we’re intoxicated, we can’t control our thoughts very well. We lose control. Peter urges us to have control of our minds; what we’re thinking. This isn’t exclusive to intoxication though, it has to do with anything that distracts us or causes our focus and clarity to be clouded.
Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ: Our focus needs to be put straight back on Jesus. The grace that he gives us is an incredible gift. Sadly, we often turn our hope away from the grace of Jesus, often without realizing it. We think that we can just try harder, manipulate a situation (whether or not we realize what we’re doing), back a political party (not bad in itself, unless we think that our hope comes from political change), rest on a church to change or help things, try to buy our way out of a problem, try to ignore something and hope it goes away…all kinds of things that we do rather than place our hope in Jesus Christ and simply walk in obedience in the things He wants us to do.
In light of the grace of God, our focus needs to be put back on Jesus, with clarity of thought, and we need to walk in obedience according to the calling which we have received.
Posted by Adam Wormann