Yes, this is a plug for the women to come out to bible study tonight, but it’s also something that really convicted me as I read it. It’s a little bit long (and took me long to copy down), but so encouraging and challenging!

from Paul Tripp’s War of Words book:

first read 1 Peter 1:3-9

“Peter tells us that there will be people who know the Lord, but whose lives are ‘ineffective and unproductive’. Their lives do not produce the harvest of good fruit that you would expect in the life of a believer. What has gone wrong? Well, Peter says these people are missing the essential qualities of character (Christlikeness) that produce a good harvest (faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love).

Peter says that when we and forget who we are, when we forget the magnitude of our sin and the glories of God’s forgiveness, we will quit pursuing all that we have found in Christ. . . You don’t look at yourself, as Paul did near the end of his ministry, as the ‘worst’ of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). You lose your sense of gospel identity, and in so doing, any urgency for pursuing Christ.

 . . . Peter wants us to know that our greatest problem is not evil without, but evil within. Christ came to save us, not just from the temptations of this fallen world, but from ourselves! . . . However, people who understand the gospel not only rejoice in the deliverance from evil desires they have already experienced, but they sense their ongoing need for deliverance so that they can continue to live for him and not for themselves.

Peter’s second point balances out the message. The gospel is not just about the magnitude of our sin, but about the overwhelming provisions of grace found in Christ. Peter says that we have been given ‘everything we need for life and godliness’. Godliness means taking on the character of the Lord in my everyday life and relationships. Peter says, ‘Don’t you know that the poverty of your sin has been overwhelmed by the glorious riches of his grace?’ You have everything you need to live as God desires!

This is what produces a heart for Christ. I embrace the magnitude of my need, but also the lavishness of his provision. I want everything Christ has to offer me. I’m not satisfied with a little faith or a little goodness. I am not content with occasional moments of love. I do not want to keep struggling with self-control. I am not content with gossiping only a couple times a month. I do not relax because I don’t lash out in anger as much as I used to. I am not comfortable with the fact that I still tend to speak out of a selfish, bitter, or self-righteous heart. No, I hunger for more of what has been supplied to me in Christ!

This is the soil in which effective personal ministry grows.“