For this very reason …
Summary: This conjunctive phrase connects the reasons for living a godly life to the need to live a godly life.
Between a door and the doorframe, there is a simple device that allows the door to swing open or closed. It is called a hinge. Without a hinge, a door is not a door. The hinge connects the two parts together to make a whole.
In Peter’s letter, the phrase, “For this very reason …” is the hinge that connects the facts Peter has laid out in the first four verses to the statements that follow. Without the hinge, there is no connection between the two. We need these words to link the facts that Peter has given us with the instructions he is about to reveal.
What has Peter told us so far? Let’s take a quick review:
- Peter is writing to those who share the same faith as himself.
- This faith comes through the righteousness of God and Jesus.
- Grace and peace come through knowing God and Jesus personally.
- God has given us what we need to live a godly life.
- God has given us promises.
- God allows us to participate in the “divine nature.”
To all of this, he adds this amazing claim:
- Through Jesus, we have escaped the corruption in the world.
“For this very reason,” he is going to instruct us to do things that confirm this statement to be true.
Here again, we are confronted by the reality of our dual nature. In spiritual terms, we have been redeemed from Satan’s hold. We have, spiritually speaking, escaped the corruption in the world. We are no longer bound by sin.
In our flesh, we are still the same person we were yesterday. But here is the thing about the flesh that is amazing: Like the door on the hinge, it can change who it opens for. When God’s Spirit resides in our heart, our will learns to close the door to corruption and evil desires and open the door to godly things.
Application: Prepare your heart to participate in the divine nature.
Food for Thought: How does it feel to have escaped the corruption of the world?
In a word: Freedom. Galatians 5: 1. It was in the context of circumcision and the futility of trying to earn our salvation. We are free from that futility. Grace provides freedom and gives us true power to fight the corruption of the world. We now have His power through the in dwelling Holy Spirit.
Thank you, Rich!
Nicely said!
09-10-2021, 1 Peter 1:5a, How does it feel to have escaped the corruption of the world?
Sins of this world begin with lies which are attractive to our flesh, but deadly to our spirits. Lies claiming to be the path which will satisfy all our individual desires.
I was raised in this lie, where I was taught things like, “ stealing is not against the law, getting caught is against the law. If you look at the prisons, you see they are filled with people that got caught.” and “Christians are weak and need their religion as a crutch. The strong people stand on their own.”
I was surprisingly successful and as a High school dropout I ended up running multimillion dollar corporations, flying around the world to conduct business, making more money than most people. My personal life was a wreck but alcohol, drugs and lots of diversions covered over this reality.
One afternoon God arranged for me to be alone in a private, quiet environment with no diversions. He had called a meeting and the Holy Spirit revealed exactly what I was as well as where I was headed. It was the most frightening experience of my life, and my only way out seemed to be taking my own life. God placed an image of a specific church near where I lived in my mind and told me to go there, which I did. In a short time God brought me together with a man in Bible Study Fellowship, who arranged for me to get past the waiting list and I began studying the book of John with other men immediately.
In six weeks I gave my life to Christ and experienced the enormous burden of sin being removed from my life as I experienced the freedom of Christ for the first time. I tried to tell my family what I had learned, my father wept and told me he had spent my entire life trying to keep me away from church, and now here I was a blank blank Christian. This ended in my separating from all my family.
Our Lord directed me to quietly separate myself from my sinful living conditions so without telling anyone, I bought a house, took a day off work, hired a moving crew and moved into my own home where I lived a quiet life alone, as I studied the Bible for the next 6 years. Initially I was so intensely aware of the change in my heart that I was simply filled with a great joy and it was as if I walked several feet off the ground everyday. In time I came back to earth as my eyes were opened to sins in and around me which required change.
For 44 years now, I have been working on sins being presented to me by God according to His priorities for my life and ministry. The Holy Spirit does the work, I focus on stopping the habitual desire. It is a lifelong job which will only be completed by Jesus when I one day rest at His feet. For the remainder of this life on earth, I will remain a reformed sinner seeking to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as I enjoy the process sanctification and increased ministry for God that comes with growth. The peace I have today is incredible and I owe everything to our Lord Jesus Christ who gave His life so that I could live.
Ron,
Thank you for sharing more of your story. I find it tremendously inspiring that God reached into your family and claimed you for himself.
“When God’s Spirit resides in our heart, our will learns to close the door to corruption and evil desires and open the door to godly things.”
AMEN to that!
How does it feel to have escaped the corruption of the world?
For just a little while I pondered what corruption of the world I have escaped, not figuratively, but literally. I’m not going to give you a list (lol), but I will say that when I ponder on this I first feel relief. I tried to be a “better person” in my life, but by myself I have yet to be successful. I can remember “turning over a new leaf” and a false sense of elation and excitement that comes with the thought that “things are going to change.” Eventually, they would go back. As my heart grows closer to Him, and I think on His Word, and my relationship with Him, I don’t have to devise ways to eliminate sin from my life, He lets me know what to do, He lets me know what need to “go.” It is often times as simple as a pause in my heart and I can recall a verse of scripture and the question comes up about “is this something that God would want in your life?”
Psalm 63:7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
Chris,
You make a very important point. Our strength is not enough. It never was and it never will be. Only through God’s power is escape from corruption possible.