Imperishable, Living, Enduring Word

1 Peter 1:23-25 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25 but the word of the Lord stands forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.
 
HAVE you opened your Christmas gift? It’s available to you today, tomorrow, Christmas morning and each day of the year. Even more, the gift is yours for eternity. Your Christmas gift is life. It gives a new birth, a new beginning into your eternal life. Yes, the gift is the imperishable, living and enduring word of God.
   You know the gift because it  was preached to you. The preaching is founded on the truth of God’s revelation to the world when the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. While Jesus dwelled among us, he showed us the Father: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” (John 14:9) The word preached to us reveals God.
   The imperishable, living and enduring word of God is further revealed when the apostles saw his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) Yes, the apostles had witnessed the glory of Jesus’ transfiguration, resurrection and ascension. They had also seen the Spirit gloriously transform lives through physical and spiritual healings, even resurrections of bodies and souls. Each apostle knew he had been born again into a new life of faith to reveal Jesus to the world.
   The imperishable, living and enduring Word is God’s Gift to open the good news of salvation into eternal life. Even though our bodies are like grass that will one day wither and fall, the word of the Lord stands forever.
   Indeed, the opened gift stays open. Oh, you might attempt to close it by putting it aside and out of sight. But once the gift has changed you, you will always be new in Christ. Romans 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  
   Through all trouble and persecution, God’s imperishable word lives and endures. He has shown us.