Live Like You Have Arrived Series

Voyage to Eternity

Living like You Have Arrived

1 Peter 2:1-12

Voyage to Eternity

What good is magic if it can’t save a unicorn?

What use is magic if it can’t save a unicorn? - Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

What good is saving time if it won’t help you enjoy living?

What good is money if it can’t buy you happiness?

What good is power if it won’t give you peace?

What good is fame if it won’t bring you security?

What good is magic if it can’t save a unicorn?

Here is the simple truth. God has given us everything we need to be fully and completely alive. We have all we need to be filled with joy that transcends happiness. We have all we need to feel the peace of God and the security of being his child.

So, why do we struggle so?

Maybe, just maybe, we have not been living with the right attitude.

Let’s read the counsel of an old man named Peter. Peter has been around the mulberry bush several times. He’s been in and out of more sticky thickets than just about anybody else who walked with Jesus on the streets of Jerusalem. Listen carefully to his wisdom… (read along in your Bibles)

Voyage to Eternity

“So then, rid yourselves of all evil, all lying, hypocrisy, jealousy, and evil speech. 2 As newborn babies want milk, you should want the pure and simple teaching. By it you can grow up and be saved, 3 because you have already examined and seen how good the Lord is…”

4 Come to the Lord Jesus, the “stone” a that lives. The people of the world did not want this stone, but he was the stone God chose, and he was precious. 5 You also are like living stones, so let yourselves be used to build a spiritual temple—to be holy priests who offer spiritual sacrifices to God. He will accept those sacrifices through Jesus Christ.

6 The Scripture says:

“I will put a stone in the ground in Jerusalem.

Everything will be built on this important and precious rock.

Anyone who trusts in him

will never be disappointed.” Isaiah 28:16

7 This stone is worth much to you who believe. But to the people who do not believe,

“the stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone.” Psalm 118:22

8 Also, he is

“a stone that causes people to stumble,

a rock that makes them fall.” Isaiah 8:14

They stumble because they do not obey what God says, which is what God planned to happen to them.

9 But you are a chosen people, royal priests, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. You were chosen to tell about the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 At one time you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. In the past you had never received mercy, but now you have received God’s mercy.

Live for God

11 Dear friends, you are like foreigners and strangers in this world. I beg you to avoid the evil things your bodies want to do that fight against your soul. 12 People who do not believe are living all around you and might say that you are doing wrong. Live such good lives that they will see the good things you do and will give glory to God on the day when Christ comes again.

Hetty Green

Have you ever heard of Hetty Green? I doubt it. She lived some years ago and was known as the witch of Wall Street because she always wore a black dress and worked in the vault of Chemical Bank in New York City

Hetty was an interesting and eccentric woman who left 100 million dollars to her two children when she died in 1916. Today that would translate to 17.5 billion dollars. Hetty died the 36th richest person ever in the United States.

Let me tell you a little about how she lived…

Hetty regularly ate cold oatmeal because it cost too much to heat it.

Hetty’s son, Ned, had his leg amputated because she took so long to get him adequate care. She was looking for a free clinic.

It is said that Hetty died in the midst of an argument over milk, she argued that skim was best because it was the cheapest.

She was wealthy but she lived like a pauper. She never enjoyed nor benefited from the riches that were hers.

A second person I heard about lived on the West Coast of America living in poverty until one day he found out that he was the only living heir to a British Nobleman. What do you think this guy did when he found out? Went to the clothing store and bought the best suit he could find, bought a 1st class ticket to London and returned to England in style!