From Peter, specially sent by Jesus the anointed king of the world.
To God’s hand-picked people. Even though you are aliens and exiles scattered all over the place (Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia), God the Father knew what he was doing when he picked you. His intent was to make you a different kind of people, made unique by the Spirit as you obey Jesus, the anointed king of the world, having been sprinkled by his blood.
May you experience a never-ending supply of grace and wholeness in your lives.
God — the Father of Jesus our Lord and anointed king of the world — is worthy of all praise! His love and kindness is so vast! Because of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus the anointed king of the world, our hope is fully alive. We have found ourselves newly born and heirs to an inheritance that can’t die, can’t be stolen, and won’t ever fall apart. It’s being kept for you in heaven’s vault. And you too are being kept as well. You’re being shielded by God’s loyalty and power until the Great Coming, the revealing of the salvation which culminates in the Great Conclusion.
Experiencing this has brought you so much joy, even though you’ve had to suffer such intense sorrows in so many different and painful things. Just know that they’re temporary. And they actually have a purpose: To prove your faith is the real deal. Turn up the heat on gold and it gets purified. Keep turning it up and it disintegrates. Not so with your faith. It’ll last and will ultimately lead to praise and glory and honor when Jesus, the anointed king of the world, is seen for who he really is.
You’ve never actually seen him and yet you love him. And even though you don’t see him now, you believe in him and your belief brings you a joy that can’t be contained in mere words but is filled with Glory. How so? Because even now, you are experiencing the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
A bit more about this salvation. The ancient prophets were obsessed with it. They spoke about the grace that was coming, searching for it like detailed detectives. They wanted to know what it all meant when the Spirit of the one anointed to be king of the world foretold the suffering of that anointed king of the world and the glories that would follow after those sufferings. One of the things revealed to them was that they weren’t serving themselves when they uttered their words. Instead, they were serving you. And they have! For you have heard the gospel, preached by those sent by the Holy Spirit (who was also sent from heaven). Even the angels watch in awe at these things.
Because of all this, stay focused, attentive, and unclouded in your thinking at all times. And keep this hope front and center: A vast grace will be poured out on you when Jesus, the anointed king of the world, is seen for who he really is in the Great Coming.
So be obedient children. And don’t get tangled up in the evil desires that had you snared before you knew better. But just as he who called you is different (from other gods), so you are to be different in every aspect of your lives (from the people who worship these other gods). As it says in Leviticus, “Be different just as I am different.”
The one we call Father is the Judge who examines each person’s deeds impartially. Because of that, live out your everyday lives here as aliens with a completely different orientation to everything you do and say and think. The way you used to live your lives was empty and meaningless, a worthless inheritance from your ancestors. A pile of money blows away and is gone and could never buy what you really needed anyway. Instead, you were purchased with the most valuable thing of all: the blood of the anointed king of the world, the perfect, unblemished sacrificial lamb.
He was hand-picked for the job before anything in the world was created. But it’s only in these Last Days that the curtain has been pulled back for him to be seen for who he really is. And all of this has been for your benefit. He’s the reason why you believe in God. And God is the one who raised him from the dead and glorified him. So now all of your faith and all of your hope together rest on God.
Knowing the truth and making your lives consistent with it has cleaned you up considerably. It’s enabled you to live lives of love for one another. I’m not talking about the shallow “love” most people talk about. And since you know the real thing, arising for the center of who you are, live it!
You’ve gone through a second birth. The first one gave you a mortal life. But the second one has given you an immortal life because it comes from the source of life itself, the undying word of God. For as Isaiah 40 says,
Everyone is like grass,
Their glory like wildflowers.
The grass gets mowed and tossed into the compost
And the fragile flowers fade.
Only the word of the Lord lasts and lasts and lasts
Forever.
And that’s the word you heard.