1 Peter 1:1-5

1 Peter 1:1-5
English Standard Version (ESV)

  Know what's great news?  A living hope.  Not a hope that was declared thousands of years ago and is still a moment in history.  Our hope is alive, having shattered the bonds of death.  Our hope is alive, and it's living in us, calling us forward into God's marvelous future, a future that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading.  I can't tell you exactly what that future is like, but the hope that lives within us pulls us towards us, reminding us of its power each and every passing day.  When the beauty of the world around us overwhelms us, when the love of a fellow human surrounds us, when the peace of God dwells richly in our hearts, these are moments in which our living hope is stirring us up to gaze forward, to waken our hearts to the reality of God's great love and the coming Kingdom of God.  Now is not the time to sit back and wait -- now is the time to live along with our hope, to let it form and shape us, to let it guide us into the kind of people God has called us to be!