Good Morning. It’s time to get back into our meditation on the book of First Peter. We’re looking at 1:13 this morning. If you have been following closely, you will discover that this post should have been posted before the Memorial Day devotional. I guess my age is catching up with me.

“Therefore, having girded the loins of your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Peter has been writing about the amazing inheritance and salvation that has been secured for us and is reserved and guarded in heaven awaiting our arrival. The prophets who wrote about this in the Old Testament, and even angels were trying to figure out what this salvation was all about. Then he writes, “Therefore.” Because of all that he has written he issues a challenge. The actual command of the challenge is, “Rest (or set) your hope ….”  Now if you look back at the verse, you’ll notice that there are a few steps of preparation that come ahead of “setting your hope.” Let’s take a look at those.

First, Peter says, “having girded the loins of your mind.” In New Testament times, men wore long robes. When it came time to run or fight, it was necessary to gather up the robes and tie them in place around the waist so that the man’s legs would be free to run and maneuver. That’s what the expression “gird up your loins” meant in those days. In this passage Peter says to do this with our minds. That means we need to gather our thoughts in place, clear our heads, get focused on what the objectives are so that our minds are ready for action. In this case it’s not necessarily a physical action, although it might be. But our minds need to be ready for mental action, for thinking, understanding, and planning. Along with that  we are to be sure our minds are sober-minded. In other words our minds need to be under control so that we don’t have thoughts running all over the place out of control. Our minds need to be controlled and ready for action before we can really be ready for some spiritual work.

The spiritual work here is what Peter tells us to do. With our minds ready for action and in control, we are to set our hope. We are to plant our hope firmly in the ground fixed in a way that it can fully function. What is the ground where we are to set our hope? Set it fully and completely on the grace that is coming our way when Jesus Christ returns. Certainly we are recipients of grace now. But when Christ comes back, that grace will be on full display and fully operational in all aspects of our lives. Because we have the grace of God at work now, we have some experience and understanding of it and we are to fix our hope on the future full revelation of that grace that we now know only in part. 

The main point I want to make is that it is not a leisurely, sort of careless unthinking planting of our hope on the promise of future grace. That is the way we often handle spiritual truths. But what Peter is saying here is that it must be done with our minds fully engaged for action. And our minds must be sober and clear-headed. It is a very conscious action that is being called for here. When a man wants to put a stake in the ground in a way and in a place where it will stay, he finds the right spot and then uses a sledge hammer to drive it firmly into the ground so that it won’t move. That’s the picture here. Take hold of your hope and plant it firmly in the ground of the grace that you have received as it will be fully brought into focus when Christ comes back for us. Do it intentionally! And, you might have to do it more than once, because unlike a physical stake, our hope is sometimes uprooted by circumstances and our minds traveling in all sorts of directions because of the cares of life. Plant your hope and do it as often as necessary.