1 Peter 4:7-11
The end of all things is near.
Peter did not write that line to produce anxiety. He wrote it to produce clarity. Because nothing sharpens the priorities of a life quite like the awareness that time is not unlimited. When you know the hour is late you stop spending your days on things that do not matter and you start investing them in things that cannot be taken away.
So Peter follows that declaration not with a list of things to fear but with a list of things to do. Be alert. Pray. Love each other deeply. Show hospitality. Use your gifts. Four instructions. One thread running through all of them. The end is near so live like it means something.
Be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. The word Peter uses for alert is the same word used for a soldier standing watch. Not anxious. Not frantic. Simply awake. Present. Paying attention to what is actually happening around you rather than sleepwalking through the days. Prayer requires alertness because prayer is not a habit you fall into. It is a discipline you choose. And you cannot choose it if you are not paying attention.
Above all love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins. The word for deeply is the same word used for a muscle stretched to its full capacity. Peter is not describing a casual affection. He is describing a love that has been extended further than comfort allows.
A love that has been pressed past preference and offense and disappointment into something that actually costs something. And the result of that stretched love is covering. Not ignoring sin. Not pretending it did not happen. But choosing to lay something over it rather than expose it. Choosing restoration over judgment. Choosing the other person’s dignity over your own right to be right.
Offer hospitality without grumbling. This is the practical test of whether the love is real. It is easy to love people in the abstract. It is another thing entirely to open your home, your table, your resources, your time, to actual people with actual needs and actual inconveniences and do it without keeping a record of what it cost you.
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others. Peter’s word for gift here is charisma. Grace gift. Something given to you not for your own benefit but for the benefit of everyone around you.
You are not the destination of what God put in you. You are the distribution point. And then he frames all of it with one phrase that changes the entire motivation. As faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
Stewards. Not owners. A steward manages what belongs to someone else. Your gifts are not yours. Your time is not yours. Your home is not yours. Your love is not something you generated. All of it came from the father and all of it is meant to flow through you toward the people He has placed around you.
If anyone speaks, do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, do it with the strength God provides. So that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.
The end of all things is near. Not so that you would be afraid. So that you would be awake. Awake to pray. Awake to love. Awake to serve. Awake to the people around you who need what God has already placed in your hands.
You are not an owner. You are a steward. And stewards live differently when they know the master is coming.
Let’s pray:
Heavenly Father, wake us up to the lateness of the hour without filling us with fear. Make us alert to pray, stretched to love, open to serve, and generous with every gift You have placed in our hands. Remind us that we are stewards, not owners, and that everything we have is meant to flow through us toward others for Your glory. In Jesus name, amen.
