August 30

As obedient children, do not conform to the passions of your former ignorance. But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” — 1 Pet 1:14-16 BSB

Grace places us under the greatest obligation to its free and generous Giver, especially in calling us to offer believing obedience to His revealed will and Word. It is by His free, sovereign, and distinguishing grace alone that we are made and shown to be His children. This grace demands from us, as a humble and insufficient tribute of grateful praise, that we walk in a manner worthy of the calling we have received, glorifying Him in both body and spirit, which are His. Anyone who has never truly known or felt this does not understand the riches of God’s grace in the manifestation of mercy and love to their soul.

Those who know it understand that, no matter what they do, they can never do enough to praise the One who has called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. Their constant grief and burden are that, because of the power of indwelling sin, they cannot do the things they desire to do but are always falling short, always sinning against the bleeding and dying love of Christ. For them, the precepts of the gospel are as precious as the promises, and they see them set in the Word as “a lamp to their feet and a light to their path,” a guiding rule by which, if they could only direct their steps, they would glorify God, live in peace and love with His people, maintain a good conscience, and adorn the doctrine they profess in all things. For such a person, obedience is not a burden but a sweet word, seen as an integral part of that free and everlasting gospel that restores fallen man to God’s favor and to an obedience that is pleasing in His sight.