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by Mark Malcolm

Verse 

13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority,
14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.
15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.
16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.
17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.
18 Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.
19 For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.
20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.
1 Peter 2:13-20 (NASB) 

Devotion 

“Honor all people…” All, people. Not some of them. Not just the ones we like. All people. 

Does that sound hard? Why does God want us to honor all people? Why does it “…finds favor…” with God? 

Honor is for other people when it comes from us. Honor is meant to help people around us. Jesus came to serve the world and the people in it, and as Christians, as the “brotherhood” (which includes both men and women) we are bound by our willing acceptance of that title to do as Christ did. 

What did Jesus do? He died for our sins. He suffered unjust persecution at the hands of the worldly authorities. He was physically tortured and executed wrongly. Does any of that sound “reasonable” to have happened to the Son of God? 

Jesus received UNreasonable treatment at the hands of the worldly government of His day. Verse twenty tries to explain this position to us. If we are punished when we deserve it we can bear that because we understand we did something wrong and deserve what we are getting, but when we are unjustly punished we feel indignant though our Christian example bore up under that unjust punishment. How then are we emulating our Lord and Savior if we resist the unjust punishment when He withstood it in silent acceptance? 

What would the outcome have been if Jesus tossed off the cross, refused to be accused unjustly, and forcibly stopped the Romans from crucifying Him? He didn’t deserve it did He? He had every right to stop them because He knew they were wrong, right? The people around Him didn’t deserve nor even know about the amazing gift He was in the process of giving them so why didn’t He just stop and take that gift back? Because He was being obedient to the task God had given Him, and it was counted as righteous forevermore. If we claim to be His followers we need to strive to do no less. This effort, successful or not is what finds favor with God. 

Bio from my web site :

Mark Malcolm is a child of God, husband, father, project manager, technical writer, gamer, fiction writer, Marine (’87-’91), has practiced Shao Lin Kung Fu and Tai Chi, been published in magazines and newspapers (editorial anyway), and seen the Southern Cross.

The goals he has currently are to more accurately identify the path God has for him to walk, continue to provide for his family, establish a solid web presence, build a career writing novels through both traditional and independent publishing, and learn to better relate to the people around him.

http://www.firstchevalier.com/about-the-cavalier/