“Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God’s living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! That’s why the prophet said, The old life is a grass life, its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers; Grass dries up, flowers droop, God’s Word goes on and on forever. This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.”
Peter sounds so much like Paul, don’t you think? These are the kind of exhortations that we find frequently in Paul’s letters. But today, we have Peter reminding us of what it means to be a Christ-follower, a believer. It means seeing oneself in a new light; it means taking note of the old and the new; and it means putting into action the essence of what it means to be living in this new life. And if there is any question on what that new life might look like, there is certainly no ambiguity on this exhortation, “love one another as if your lives depended on it.” Are you, gentle reader, doing this?
