Greetings from the Oʻahu Church of Christ. My name is Jackson Cheng and I want to thank you for joining us in this podcast series, “Refined by Fire”.
I hope that you have been enjoying our podcast series on the Apostle Peter and his spiritual journey. The theme Scripture and the title is from 1 Peter 1:3-9, which he wrote toward the end of his life.
1 Peter 1:3-9 (NIV)
Praise to God for a Living Hope
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire —may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
What a great Scripture! As we have seen throughout this series, Peter had gone through various different things where his own faith had been tested and refined as he tackled overcoming different things in life that can sometimes blind us spiritually.
I thought about this passage and how it is fitting for us today, as many of us are feeling the effects of COVID-19. Life will have many challenges. But if we keep God’s perspective, they are momentary. So if we persevere, our faith will grow and ultimately that faith will give us hope of one day receiving salvation of our souls!
This is the last podcast in our series. So far we have looked at Spiritual Blindness and how though faith has to do with what we do not see, sometimes it is the things that we do see that can blind us spiritually. And we looked at things in Peter’s life that he had to overcome in order to see clearly: sinfulness, doubt, worldliness and failure. Today, we are going to look at overcoming prejudice.
Disciple in the church for over 28 years. Married to an awesome wife and raising two teenagers and one poi dog (who is more obedient than the kids!). I was inspired to do this podcast series to bring a little more dose of Bible and faith into all of our lives, especially during these uncertain times.
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