Your inheritance awaits: hope for exiles

If you are in exile, scattered to a place you do not really call ‘home’, what security do you have? What is there to cause you to praise? What will the future hold? These could be the sorts of questions being asked by those to whom the apostle Peter wrote his first letter.

Similarly, we might feel insecure today. If more institutions become hostile to Christian truths, career plans and thoughts of job security start to fade away. What security is there for ministers and congregations in declining denominations?

Into the fragility of exile and scattering, Peter blasts a note of praise and security: 'Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Peter 1:3).

Our real security

After His suffering, Jesus Christ rose from the dead and entered into glory. By God’s mercy, we are given new birth into that reality. Our first birth brings us into a world that is dying, while our new birth brings us into a kingdom destined for glory.

You have an inheritance. I used to daydream about some distant, lost relative dying with a fortune, and the money ending up coming to me! In Christ, you have an inheritance that cannot be diminished by time, by fluctuating markets or by governments eager to fill a black hole. Your inheritance in Christ will never perish, spoil or fade. Compared to this inheritance, even gold is perishable. If your pension pot is dismal, if your stock portfolio is prone to being wiped out by economic turmoil, if the family home may need to be sold to cover the costs of care, if your valuable heirlooms are threatened by time, rust and woodworm, then remember something far more secure: an inheritance with Christ.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme guarantees the first £85,000 of your savings in a registered bank but beyond that, the risk of loss increases. But no power can take away even the tiniest fraction of an inheritance kept in heaven for you.

What about you? Your inheritance might be kept safe, but will you receive it, feeble and frail as you are? Peter reassures Christians that they – you – are shielded by God’s power, through faith, until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. No Iron Dome or deeply buried bunker can protect someone more than God’s power can shield a believer.

'In all this you greatly rejoice,' says the apostle. These verses are worth memorising so that you can call on these truths as fuel for the fire of praise. Read them out loud together with a friend. Yes, this world contains so much that is insecure. Yes, we are exiles scattered in societies that may scorn and mock. But Jesus has risen. You have new birth. The inheritance is secure. You are shielded. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!