²¹For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, ²²who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth . . .

Our lives have purpose. As believers, we don’t wander aimlessly, seeking to find ourselves and the purpose for our existence. In Christ, we already have meaning. God created us in His likeness, with an objective in mind: that we tend to His creation (Gen. 1:26, 5:1). Unpacking all that this would require more space than we have here.

But suffering tempts us to call into question our purpose. We call out, “Why, Lord?” However, we must remember that God’s purpose for us includes suffering, and therefore our ultimate goal cannot be our comfort. Rather, we must see our difficulties in life as part of His assignment for us. Since creation is now fallen, we must tend His creation amid our fallen world. So God purposes for us to enter into suffering, embracing it as His will.

Though we have fallen away from God’s likeness because of sin, He has redeemed us back to His image. We live out God’s likeness by looking to Jesus as our model. For after all, “[Jesus] is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3a). So too, our passage tells us that Jesus is our example of living out God’s purpose in suffering. We have a vested interest in modeling our response to suffering after Him because His suffering was “for” us, for me. God sent Him into a fallen world to die on our behalf, for us, in our place. We are the beneficiaries of His “tending” to His creation.

In particular, Peter now highlights a general truth for us, then a specific malady common to suffering. Jesus was sinless (2 Cor. 5:21, Heb. 4:15). To model our lives after Jesus, then, means we do not use our suffering as an excuse to sin or justify ungodly responses to our circumstances. We can so easily justify cursing, for example, or retaliation against our persecutors, in the name of our right to defend ourselves. Because we have been sinned against, all other sins are justified. That is not Christlikeness but self-centeredness. We should be like the One whose purpose was to die for us, and who He did not sin in the process of making this happen. Consequently, He did not fall into the deceit of Satan that He should save Himself above all else (Matt. 4:1–11).

The innate tendency for self-preservation protects from harm in the world. But, when controlled by the sinful nature, this self-protection turns to retaliation, revenge, etc.  But when we become more like Christ, this all changes.

Lord, help me be like Christ, who endured suffering as a sacrifice for me.