This is the eighth in a series on 1 Peter. The series begins here.

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I have written and sent this short letter to you with the help of Silas, whom I commend to you as a faithful brother. My purpose in writing is to encourage you and assure you that what you are experiencing is truly part of God’s grace for you. Stand firm in this grace (1 Peter 5:12).

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Perhaps this post is out of place. Perhaps it belongs at the very end of our nine-day sojourn with Peter. But we’re going ahead with it today.

There’s a statement here that sums it all up. Everything Peter has been saying about who we are and where we are going is in these words: This is God’s grace for you.

Peter wants us to catch a glimpse of this: that God’s grace—His kindness and favor toward us—is the realm in which we now live.

Grace created this life for us. Grace cleansed us and brought us into His presence. Grace was the adoption process that made us His children, the kindness and mercy that paid for our sin, the love that invites us into a relationship with our Creator.

Grace transforms the dead into living,
and the broken into whole,
and suffering into sacred ground.

Grace is the air we breathe,
the light that keeps us alive,
and the bridge that takes us safely into tomorrow.

Everything that we now are — God’s children, His treasured people, His holy temple—

and everything awaiting us in the future

is His kindness and mercy working itself out in our lives.

It’s the whole story of God’s plan to bring His people back to Himself. You are living in the pouring out of something so wonderful that even the angels are eagerly watching what happens.

Stand firm in this grace.