Spiritually Out of Sync

The final part of 1 Peter 2 gives us a strategy for turning opposition into an opportunity. If you live for Christ in a culture antagonistic to your faith you will be mischaracterized, marginalized, and mistreated. 

Our strategy is to keep our conduct honorable, do good, and endure suffering righteously. In doing so they see your good works and glorify God on the day of visitation. You put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. And you become a living display of Christ which is a testimony to those who would persecute you and it pleases God.

It’s one thing to go out into a world like that everyday but what if you also come home to it? 

What if the people who mischaracterize, marginalize, and mistreat you are sitting with you on the couch? What if the people who want to rid the world of your faith are eating with you at the dining room table? What if the person you want to see saved the most but who wants to hear it the least is laying with you in bed?

What’s your strategy for turning opposition at home into an opportunity?

Do you go Old Testament prophet on them and tell them to turn or burn? Do you drop pages from your Oswald Chambers devotional into the cereal box hoping they find it, read it and get saved over a bowl of Lucky Charms? Do you write John 3:16 on the bathroom mirror with lipstick? 

Do you ignore them? Do you argue with them? Do you just agree to disagree?

If it gets to be too much do you give up on them or do you give up on Christ?

What’s your strategy?

So if you want to win your unbelieving spouse the Holy Spirit gives Peter some wisdom for the wives and a warning for the husbands in 1 Peter 3:1-7.