Active Faith
Prepare your minds for action
By Carol Miller
July 20, 2014
Last week we talked about focused faith and looked at passages about how we need to focus on
our hope of glory, the living hope that we have for an eternal inheritance, so that our faith possesses
a helmet for our minds and an anchor for our souls…tightly tied to Jesus Christ.
This week we are adding the quality of active faith that Pater makes reference to in 1 Peter 1:13
when he says “prepare you minds for action”.
Reading the applicable verses 1 Peter 1:13-19:
Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the
grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your
ignorance,
but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;
because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."
If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one's work,
conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth;
knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile
way of life inherited from your forefathers,
but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. (1 Peter
1:13-19)
“Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace
to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
“Prepare your mind for action," the first action being to fix (or focus) our hope, but there is more.
Mary Jo Sharp described active faith as a faith that continues to move forward even though it is
confronted, squeezed and beset by suffering, persecutions, and trials of various kinds.
Active faith could be described by Paul as the good fight of faith in 1 Tim. 6:12 NASB: Fight the
good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good
confession in the presence of many witnesses. Because Paul understood what Mary Jo said about
our natural tendency being to resort to our baser desires, or to withdraw into passivity and mindless
re-actions instead of doing the contrary thing of pressing forward to show forth the transformation
that God, by His Holy Spirit, has worked into our lives.
That is the first thing Peter addresses in our passage for today at 1 Peter 1:14-15 NASB. He says,
in effect, since you are obedient children, assuming you are, “as obedient children, do not be
conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance:…those natural tendencies to fall
back in passivity or mindless re-action or rebellion—but instead 1 Peter 1:15 NASB “like the Holy
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One who called you (“called,” kaleo) means “saved you,” behold yourselves in all your behavior.
Because it is written, “You shall be Holy for I am Holy.” Active faith should focus on the hope of
glory, and press forward purposefully to demonstrate the transformation toward holiness.
Romans 12:2 NASB:
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you
may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Be ye transformed…
Romans 8:28-29 NASB:
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those
who are called according to His purpose.
Rom 8:29 NASB:
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son,
so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
Conformed (not to the former lusts that were yours in ignorance [1Peter 1:14]) but conformed to the
image of God’s Son and be one of many brethren who are just like Jesus. This is really God’s
ultimate goal for us. And it is the same thing as saying that He will conform us to His holy character.
Those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His own holiness, so
that Jesus (He) would be the firstborn among many (holy) brethren.
Personal Study Book, page 87:
Sometimes we think of holiness like picture #4. Looks pretty but rather uninteresting for the rest of
eternity and religious and boring, doesn’t it, like being “sweet” with halos and stepping out on a
stained glass window. Just what we’re all hoping for! Right? No, what we are all hoping for is like
Psalm 45:6-7,
Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your
kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has
anointed You With the oil of joy above Your fellows. (Psalm 45:6-7 NASB)
to be filled and over-flowing with joy. Jesus is anointed with joy above all His brethren, because He
loved righteousness and hated wickedness. To be holy results in an anointing of joy! But pressing
in on being holy while living in the world – hating wickedness – and doing righteousness will not
always necessarily feel all that joyful in the present age in which we live. Sometimes it can and will
but not always, especially in a circumstance of persecution.
Let’s look at Jesus’ example as it is given in Hebrews 12:1-2 NASB for the best picture of active
faith—exercised by the “author and perfecter of faith”:
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside
every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance
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the race that is set before us,
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of
God. (Hebrews 12:1-2 NASB)
We are told that He was focusing on the prize—the hope—the joy of the coming glory up ahead of
Him. That is how we must “prepare our minds for action.”
Now let's turn back to Hebrews 11 and remind ourselves of some things about active faith as
exercised by the heroes of it.
Active Faith
1. By it we gain God’s approval (Hebrews 11:1 NASB)
2. The active faith of an individual is eternal (Hebrews 11:2 NASB)
3. We understand (Hebrews 11:3 NASB)
4. He still speaks [Abel] (Hebrews 11:4 NASB)
5. Active faith makes us pleasing to God [Enoch] (Hebrews 11:5 NASB)
6. We cannot please God without it. (Hebrews 11:6 NASB)
7. These pleased God:
Hebrews 11:7 NASB Noah;
Hebrews 11:8-9 NASB Abraham;
Hebrews 11:11 NASB Sarah;
Hebrews 11:20 NASB Isaac and Jacob;
Hebrews 11:21 NASB Joseph;
Hebrews 11:23 NASB Moses;
Hebrews 11:31 NASB Rahab;
Hebrews 11:32 NASB Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel.
Let’s remember: If our life is being destroyed by a fiery trial and we can save one thing out of the
fire, it needs to be our faith—whatever else is lost, we must reach inwardly, get hold of Jesus, hang
onto our faith (exercise “active faith”) in response to our situation, whatever it is, and nothing else
will really matter.
In 1 Peter 1:17, Peter says “if you address as Father the One who impartially judge according to
each ones man’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth.”
An active faith and holy behavior are founded on “the fear of the Lord.”
Proverbs 16:6 – “by the fear of the Lord, men depart for evil.”
In the document on “Learning to Fear of the Lord” [I handed out], note the three levels:
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1. Not just natural consequences but spiritual consequences of tension, pressure, guilty
conscience, anxiety or depression that result from sin.
2. See Psalm 51:4a - against thee and thee only have I sinned. This level makes the others
seem as nothing.
3. Read 1 Peter 1:18-20. You heard Mary Jo Sharp’s comments on why Peter included the
explanations of the high cost of our redemption and that it is good to explain the blood
sacrifice as the payment necessary for the removal of our sin and to also include the
Resurrection as the basis for our new life. Christ conquered death, after sin had been
abolished for us through His shedding of His blood. So Jesus’ death redeems this
creation that originally was good but has gone terribly astray. Peter was calling us. I
believe, to fear the Lord, give Him profound respect because of the incalculable price He
paid for our redemption.
Now let’s read 1 Peter 1:22-24:
Actively pursuing holiness and walking in the fear of the Lord will purify our souls. It will increasingly
sanctify us and conform us to the image of Christ. When that is happening, the action of the Holy
Spirit is to pour out love in our hearts, really for everyone, but especially for our brethren.
Romans 5:3-5:
In suffering and trials, we develop proven character, holiness, if we keep active faith and the love of
God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Peter exhorts us to respond actively to that which is happening within us by the power of the Holy
Spirit, and to fervently exercise that love toward one another. It is supernaturally natural that we
possess it; so do with it what you are supposed to do! Show it, act on it from the heart, sincerely
and fervently, toward all your brothers and sisters!
1 Peter 1:23: Peter is telling us, I believe, that the life we have within us, which pours out God’s love
in our hearts, is inexhaustible – we cannot use it up or exhaust it, or kill it, and that is because it is
from an unkillable seed: the Word of God.
Peter quotes from Isaiah 40:8, “All flesh is like Grass and all its glory like the flower of grass, The
grass withers and the flower falls off, But the Word of the Lord endures Forever.”
Psalms 103:15-16 says the same about man’s fleeting life.
continue forever.
But God’s Word is eternal—it will
In the Beginning was the Word and so it will be forever and without end. And the Word of
God was active in the new birth of each of us.
Romans 10:17—faith comes by hearing the Word of God. (The new birth involves hearing the
specific part of the Word that explains the gospel)
James 1:18—The “Word of truth” is what God used to “bring us forth,” or to give us the new birth.
And the Scripture keeps feeding the new man. In the next Chapter, (1 Peter 2) Peter tells us to
“long for” the pure milk of the Word, (and the use of “milk” does not eliminate the “meat” of the Word
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in this passage but includes all of God’s Word. An active faith needs to be nourished by the “Word
of God.”
Scriptures
1. 1 Tim 6:12
2. Romans 12:2
3. Romans 8:28-29
4. Psalms 45:4
5. Hebrews 12:1-2
6. Hebrews 11:1-6
7. Proverbs 16:6
8. Romans 5:3-5
9. Psalm 103:15-16
10. Romans 10-17
11. James 1:18
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