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Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 1269 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
God's Great Grace (part 1) – Meditation Monday


Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge.  Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy.  Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1269 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday.  Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy.  For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection.  You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer.  It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body.  As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.

 In our meditation today, let us consider:
God’s Great Grace (Part 1)
This Meditation Monday, we will learn what the Apostle Peter had to say about God’s Grace, and next Monday we will learn God’s grace through the Prophet Daniel.  It is only by God’s great grace that we can amount to anything. It reminds me of John Bradford (c.1510–1555), the English reformer, is said to have remarked as he saw a crowd of condemned criminals being led up to execution, : “There, but for the grace of God.”  Another story is of John Newton is best known as composer of the hymn, ‘Amazing Grace,’ encapsulated the amazing grace of God in some of his last words as he lay dying in 1807, He declared: “I am a great sinner, but Christ is a great Saviour.”

In today’s New Testament passage, Peter speaks of the kindness of God, that is, His grace.  1 Peter 5:10 tells us, In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.

How should you respond to God’s great grace?

Grace is a gift, and the appropriate response to a gift is thanksgiving. Praise is the supreme form of thanksgiving, and therefore praise and worship is the appropriate response to the God of all grace.

 

Let’s back up a bit and read Psalm 134:1–3

Oh, praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, you who serve at night in the house of the Lord.
Lift your hands toward the sanctuary,
and praise the Lord.

May the Lord, who made heaven and earth,
bless you from Jerusalem.

1 Peter 5:1–14 Show us how we are to respond to God’s grace, especially when we are in the position of authority over others.
First, you must humble yourself, as described in Verses 2-6.
Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God.  Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example.  And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor.

In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you, dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for

“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God,