Peter’s Words, Part II Today's Three-minute Bible Study Print, Study and Apply Title: Peter’s Words, Part II ------------------------------ Date: 07/02/2000 Keywords: "gird" "grace" "holy" "hope" "lust" "peace" "Peter" Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. Passage: 1 Peter 1:13-16* 13. Therefore, gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, 15. but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; 16. because it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." Questions 1. What bold challenge did Peter give his readers?   2. Was some of the sexual behavior you now struggle with acquired in your life before becoming a Christian?   Practical help "To gird" is an old way of saying "tighten." The idea is that you need to tighten up your thinking. Take what you are thinking seriously, and analyze it for flaws in logic. Fix your mind on the idea of God's grace in your life. When you are fixing your mind like this, you are exercising the hope Peter is talking about. Hope takes effort in this passage; it's not a lightweight wishing that things will get better. Before you knew that there was a God, you were the center of your own universe. At that time your imagination was used to dreaming about how you could bend reality to what would please you. In that world-bound imagination, your thoughts would easily drift to sexual fantasies. Pornography fuels this type of imagination. After you surrendered your life to Christ, Peter's words are for you. He tells you to begin to think differently and to place a holy God squarely into the middle of your imagination. As you continually do this, you will begin to change from the inside out, and others will begin to see God's holiness in you. If you haven't accepted Jesus' sacrifice on your behalf, click here. His power in your life is the only way to change behavior? eXXit homepage Index of three-minute studies Copyright 2000 by eXXit *"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission."