The Hope of Grace

“Therefore, preparing 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.” (1 Peter 1:13 ESV)

I love the word “Therefore”; it causes me to stop and focus on what was said before to understand why I should follow the instructions that are to come. In grammar, it is a matter of indicatives and imperatives. The indicative precedes, therefore, the imperative.  In other words, the author is taking the time to state what God has done for us (indicative) and then to tell us how to put that truth into action (imperative).

Here, the Apostle Peter tells us that because the prophets of old prophesied of the mercy and grace that would come… through our Savior Jesus Christ and because of this truth, we “therefore” should 1) Prepare our minds for action, 2) be sober-minded and 3) Set our hope entirely on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, let us look briefly at these exhortations.

The main verb of this verse is “set your hope”; it is in the Imperative mood, which is a directive, telling us to do something, not just state a fact. This sets up the intent of this verse. Peter is exhorting that if we will only “set our hope fully on grace,” then we can “prepare our minds for action” and that we “can be sober-minded.”

So, what does that mean? The Greek word “prepare” is basi, which means we can “prepare our minds for action” and “can be soberly minded. “Cally” means to get ready to move quickly. Peter’s words tell us to get our minds ready for action.

We often find ourselves not ready for the spiritual battles that the evil one is waging against us and Christ’s church. We frequently see problems and give credit where credit is due. We think it’s no big deal; we can deal with this on our own; after all, we are pretty resourceful, have a good head on our shoulders, and have faced things like this before. And that is where the evil one says “gotcha”; we have taken the bait, and the evil one sets the hook.

If we had our minds ready for battle with the evil one, we would have recognized this trap and called upon our God much earlier and would not have nearly as many problems as trying to “fix” it on our own. Peter says, be ready; the evil one is active and is roaming around like a lion seeking whom he can devour. (I Peter 5:8)

The second thing we should do is to “be sober-minded.” This idea really goes with “preparing your mind for action; it is kind of the other side of the coin. Sober means “free from illusion, free from the intoxicating influences of sin.” Again, if we keep our minds active on what God has done for us and stay focused on Him, we will be able to keep our minds free from the intoxicating influences of sin.

Now, we can do these two things if we “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” when we are not relying on our abilities to fight the evil one. We realize that it is only by God’s grace that He finds us wholly acceptable in the beloved.

All too often, I have found that believers understand our complete dependency on God for salvation but then think that we are left to own willpower, strength, and abilities to fight the evil one. That is not at all what Peter is saying. He clearly has learned and is sharing with us that everything is because of the Grace of our beloved Jesus.

So, my friends, let us heed Peter's call and get our minds and spirits ready for battle. Let us not just set but fully anchor our hope on God’s extraordinary grace. This is not a passive hope but an active one that guides our thoughts and actions.

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"