Growing in the Gospel!

This semester, as a campus we are studying the book of 1 Peter.  As we have begun this study, I have begun to recognize how the first chapter of this book seems to point out very prominent misconception of the Gospel in our culture; that misconception being the extreme disconnect we often create between what we believe and the way we live.  We have also been talking about this misconception in our Tuesday night meetings.  One thing that I have been seeing Peter distinguish and consequently we have been talking about at our Tuesday night meetings is that our actions and our beliefs are inseperably connected.  One specific point we have been making is that our actions are actually just an outward expression of inward truths.  Here is an excert from a sermon I read recently by John Piper.  In this sermon, Piper is talking about what we should fear in our walks with God and he specifies that we should fear living in a way that reflect that we don't cherish Christ above all things.  The sense of fear he is speaking about is the fear mentioned in 1 Peter 1:17 and Phil. 2:12-13. 

"Peter says, there is a very appropriate fear as we live our lives, namely, a fear of living as though our faith (our hope!) were not in God. Here's the link between verse 17 and verse 13, between living in hope and living in fear. What we are to fear, Peter means, is not hoping in God (cf. Romans 11:20).
When we are tempted to conduct ourselves in a way that would show that our hope is in money rather than God, we should fear. When we are tempted to act in a way that would show that our hope is in the pleasure of pornography instead of God, we should fear. When Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:18, "Flee fornication," he meant, "Fear what it would mean about where your hope is if you commit fornication." It was the same spirit that Jesus had when he said, "If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better to enter life with one eye than with two to be cast into hell" (cf. Matthew 5 :29). Fear living in ways that betray your lack of satisfaction in God."

-John Piper

This thought has been one which has been very challenging to me and examining places in my own life where I live like Jesus is not most precious.  Pray that these truths would challenge students to examine themselves.