"The God of All Grace" Will Do It!

 Dear Saints,

The God of all Grace Will Do It. Do what?

 

As we almost reach the end of studying 1 Peter, apostle Peter reminds and encourages the suffering pilgrims to hang in there and look to the One who called them to Himself and the destination. He will surely do it.

 

Let’s read and listen to Peter:

 

“But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” 1 Peter 5:10-11.

 

Everyone is suffering, not just Christians, because of the sin that entered this world. There’s hope for those in Christ. What about the unbelieving, though I prefer “yet-to-believe”?

 

This past Tuesday, 1/31, I met a “yet-to-believe” at a hotel in New Jersey. I traveled to be with my friend and his family during his mother’s funeral. I came down for the hotel’s complimentary breakfast. I sat facing a middle age Caucasian man also having breakfast at another table. I greeted him, and I asked how he was doing. He said, “I’m hanging there.” I left my table and asked if I could join him. He said yes.

 

I introduced myself, and he said he was Mike. He went on to guess the origin of my name Udo and said it must be African. I said yes. I have been through this protocol many times. I helped him narrow it down to Nigeria.

 

I said to Mike, why are you “hanging in there”? He said he had just returned from a European business trip and would do more business in New York before returning to San Francisco, California. Mike said he is debating whether to return to the New York area because all his family lives here. He left the New York area in 1989. I sensed that Mike was confused and tired of life. I asked Mike if he had asked the one person who should know what to do. Mike said he had spoken to his sisters. Then he said maybe he should ask God. I said to Mike that I was referring to God as the One.

 

I told Mike that God knew everything about him even before he was born. I asked him to check it out in Psalm 139. He googled it on his phone and started reading. He said yes and yes as he read. I told him to read to the end verses, which say, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24.

 

I told Mike that God knows all his anxieties and wants him to know God. I told him it begins with knowing Jesus Christ; I gave him a gospel tract to learn more about knowing Christ. Mike had to go to work, so we said goodbye.

 

Please join me as I pray for Mike. Lord, please reveal yourself to Mike. Please deliver him from whatever lifestyle of sin he is living, bring him to repentance, and grant him forgiveness. Please, Lord, fill Mike with your Holy Spirit that will lead him to all truth and guide him for the rest of his life. I pray the same for Roy, on business from Korea, whom I interacted with in the hotel gym. And another man I met in the elevator, both in the same hotel. Lord, you know them very well; please reach them even through the gospel tracts I gave them. Amen.

 

Friend, you have been promised a destiny, “The God of all grace who has called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus.” “Eternal glory” surpasses all your present sufferings. That is what Mike, Roy, you, and I need. That’s all I am looking forward to in this short earthly life with all kinds of suffering. What are you suffering right now? Cast it upon God for He cares for you.

 

Oh, friend, Peter said God will “perfect, establish, strengthen and settle” you, me, Mike, Roy, and the “elevator man.” So, let’s continue to humble ourselves under the Mighty hand of God, cast all cares on God, resist the devil, and watch God finish and complete the new life He began in us. “To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

 

Are you a Mike, confused, without hope in Jesus Christ? I pray the same prayer for you as I prayed for Mike. Amen.

 

Please look out for the Mike, Roy, or the “elevator man” around you? Please reach out to the many Mikes and introduce them to Jesus Christ. God will do for them as He has done for us. Amen.

 

"The God of all grace will perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you." God will and has done it through Christ Jesus' death, burial, resurrection. Let's trust Him. He has never failed, not now and forever. Amen. May God's grace be sufficient for you and me today and forever. Amen.