With a scripture passage as compressed and intense as this one, it is helpful to take it apart and examine it more closely. Consider first that it was God's "mercy" that has restored us. God chose to show compassion to us that we do not deserve, and to pardon us from the deadly consequences of our sinful rebellion.

While most translations read that God caused us to be born again, the World English Bible reads God chose to "become our Father again", and there is power in both interpretations. In being born again, we are given a new start as a new creature, not the old sinful creature that we once were. In our modern thinking, we usually miss the point that we are newly born into God's family, a family to which we originally belonged until we broke away from it in sin and erected barriers to keep the family from being a part of our lives. We had irrevocably terminated the family bond, but God found a way to put back together what was impossibly broken, so that God could give us another opportunity to accept Him as our Father.

Peter describes this restored relationship as a "living hope", an odd combination of words that reminds us that we have put our trust not in what will be but in Who is now. We do not live by faith in facts or events but by the One whose immeasurable power created us, sustains us, and will escort us to our heavenly home.

What God is doing in us and for us is an "incorruptible and undefiled inheritance", a promise that could never be kept on earth, but a promise that is being made alive in us now as God "guards us through faith" for what will be the complete and glorious holy re-creation.

Peter wrote these powerful words to those being threatened, tortured, and killed for their beliefs, with the amazing promise that God's power in these would "result in praise, glory and honor". Even the worst that the evil in this world can do will result in holiness when God's power is allowed to work through us.

We rarely receive the blessing of seeing how God changes what is evil into good when that happens in our lives. We experience the pain, frustration, hurt, and even despair when evil things happen to us and the ones we love. Most of us do not face the horrors that Peter's first audience faced, but sin is still very active in our world today, and we still face an onslaught that seeks to erode our faith and undo what God has done. We want to see results that prove our steadfastness makes a difference in God's Kingdom, but that isn't how faith works.

We are not an "army of one", as American military advertisements would encourage us to be. We are restored members of the Family, and those in Biblical times would have understood that their primary allegiance was to the family or tribe, not to themselves. We are called to serve God with boldness, trusting that God will take every effort of ours, no matter how flawed or feeble, and use it to strengthen the Family. In God's hands, our pain will lovingly lure others into the Family and will give courage to Family members struggling to obey in the face of opposition. We may not know how or when, but we know Who will bring about those miracles of faith.

We also know Who equips us for every trial. We know God has promised that the Grace we receive will be more than we need at every challenge and in every low point of our lives, and we know that Jesus has already passed through every low point in order to lead us to what God has prepared for us. We will rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and glory that this sinful world cannot hold, and God is already growing that joy and glory in us now.

The power of the resurrection is not merely that death is no longer the end for us. Resurrection is far more valuable than Jesus standing in for us to bear the punishment for our sins. Resurrection changes everything by the persistent force of Grace, and as the hymn assures us, Grace will lead us home.