Dear brethren,

Do you remember all the flower baskets many of us bought and enjoyed last year, from the late spring into the time of the autumn frosts?  Remember the beauty of those flowers, the wonderful fragrance floating from the clusters of open blossoms, the sweet nectar that fed the butterflies and hummingbirds?  These are good memories, for sure, the wonder of annual flowering plants that live for a while and then are no more.  There are spiritual lessons we can learn from observing the life cycles of living things, and God inspired some of these lessons in His word. 

“All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.  The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever” (1 Pet. 1:24-25).  Sometimes, with a lot of care, flowering plants can be kept alive for more than one season.  One of us, Chester, nurtured some of last year’s Camp Fundraiser flower baskets through the winter, and now they are blooming again!  This brought to mind something else that Peter wrote that speaks of God’s love for each one of us.  “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise…but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).  Maybe God is giving us the time we need to bloom again, to grow and thrive, to become beautiful to Him and to those around us. 

Notice the context of this passage, and think of it as it applies to your own, personal preparations for Passover:  “…knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct…but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot.  He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.  Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.  The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”  Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.  Therefore, laying aside all malice, all guile, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”  (1 Pet. 1:18 – 2:3). 

There are some deep things for all of us in this passage.  God doesn’t want us to fade away, but to be “born again.”  What lessons can you draw from this passage that will help you to “grow thereby”?

Sincerely,

Roc