Vs. 1  “Rid yourselves of all malice
and all deceit, hypocrisy,
envy, and slander
of every kind.”

Thank God this is not the kind of cleaning Peter is calling you and I to do.  On second thought maybe you and I should wish that it were.  Peter is calling us to a spiritual cleaning. He said,

Why do you think Peter is telling us to rid ourselves of such attitudes and behavior?  It is quite obvious these are not the most endearing qualities.  I am sure Carmen and Amy are not going to raise Gianna so that she will possess these behavioral characteristics.  But chances are these characteristics will be visible in her life at one time or another.

What leads me to this conclusion is my own personal life, which I would venture to guess is not very different from yours.  We have been raised not to be malicious, not to be deceitful, not to be hypocritical, not to be envious and not to be slanderous, and yet the truth is we all have.  This has been confirmed to me throughout this past week as I have entered in conversations and overheard conversations about a certain man mentioned in the flyers circulating around town and about the sexual immortality crisis among priests.

Trust me I have heard some very unchristian attitudes expressed by so called Christian people.  These malice and slanderous remarks stink of hypocrisy.  If you and I are going to call ourselves Christians then we need to heed Peter’s teaching.

Why, because they are not characteristics of Christ and therefore should not be characteristics of Christ’s followers.  I acknowledge that such un-Christ-like characteristics are part of life.  These cravings are induced by fear, by anger, by a desire for revenge.  They are prompted by biases, by hearsay, by public opinion.  We are not called to reflect public opinion; we are called to reflect Christ.  As Peter said,

I realize, as Paul did that this is easier said than done.  That is why Peter said,

Carmen and Amy can tell you about an infant craving to be fed.  Gianna doesn’t care what time it is.  When she has a craving to be fed, she is going to let her parents know about it.

As Gianna grows she is going to crave many other things in her life.  Many of the things she will crave will not be good for her.  Like most children she will crave to touch a cup that has just been filled with a hot beverage.  She will crave to explore what is behind the kitchen cabinet doors.  As she grows her craving will change.  Eventually she will crave what her friends have, she will crave to do the things that they do, she will crave to see movies and listen to music not suitable for her age or ears.

Carmen and Amy, you will have the responsibility to determine which cravings will be satisfied and which cravings won’t.  We live in a world where too often people base their self-concept on their accomplishments, their jobs, their success, their wealth.  We live in a world that all too often stumbles and falls over the very cornerstone of life, Jesus.  We crave to do what we want.  We crave freedom to believe as we wish and then complain when we stumble and fall.

The greatest gift you can give Gianna and yourself, is to crave God.  Crave God for who He is not what you can get. Your value comes from being one of God’s children.  You have worth because of what God does not because of what you do.

We must crave God in the same way Jesus craved God, in the same way Stephen did.

To crave anything else, you are cheating yourself because everything else will someday fade away.  Faith in God you take with you into the next life where you will not need faith, because you will indeed see God face to face.

So....