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Mid-century illustration of a calm sea at dawn

1 Peter 1:3 · World English Bible

1 Peter 1:3 Meaning Blessed Be the God and Father

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

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What does 1 Peter 1:3 mean?

The second birth spoken of here comes from the resurrection and from nothing else. Something in you has lain asleep, buried in the body as a man lies buried in a tomb, and one day it wakes inside your own skull.

From the Manifestation reading below.

1 Peter 1:3 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

MANIFESTATION

Manifestation

The second birth spoken of here comes from the resurrection and from nothing else. Something in you has lain asleep, buried in the body as a man lies buried in a tomb, and one day it wakes inside your own skull. That awakening is the resurrection of Christ within. It causes the birth from above. The father being blessed is your own imagination, the power that raised you. Once that power stirs and a person comes to himself, the lively hope named here stops being a wish. It becomes the settled expectation of someone already lifted out of the grave. He does not hope his way toward a better life. He stands in a life that death can no longer reach.

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Manifestation lens

Live 1 Peter 1:3 today

  1. Before you look at your phone in the morning, sit still for one minute and feel like someone whose good outcome is already settled. Let the day start from there instead of from the notifications.
  2. With one person today, drop the small complaining that usually carries a conversation along. Speak as someone with nothing to be rescued from, and see how differently the talk goes.
  3. When bad news lands, in an email or a phone call, let the first reaction pass through without acting on it. Then speak from the calm underneath, which was there before the news and is still there after.

What in me is still waiting to be rescued, when it could simply wake up?

The same truth in other traditions

Buddhism

The Buddha's name means the one who woke up, and what changed was not his circumstances but his seeing. After that the old restlessness had nothing left to hold.

Hinduism · Advaita Vedanta

The teachers spoke of a man mistaking a rope for a snake in the dark and trembling at nothing. When the light comes the fear does not improve, it ends.

Sufism

The Sufis repeat the saying die before you die, and then discover there was never anything to lose. What is born after that no longer lives by hoping.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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