A few questions in response to Bible.org's article on self-control

"1 Pet. 1:13 Therefore, get your minds ready for action, by being fully sober, and set your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.
(3) “Set your hope fully” (NIV) or “set your hope completely” (NET). With this imperative, we come to the primary emphasis and responsibility of Peter’s exhortations. By way of word order and thus emphasis, the Greek text has, “completely hope…” “Completely” is the adverb teleios, “fully, perfectly, completely, altogether, unreservedly.” It is a call for an undivided, single-minded hope, a confident expectation that lives daily in view of the return of the Lord and the eternal realities promised in Scripture that accompany salvation. Though Peter has already spoken of the Savior’s return and the accompanying ultimate stage of salvation (vss. 5, 7, 9), he now speaks of it literally as “the grace that is being brought to you.” First, he speaks of this ultimate salvation by the wonderful expression, “the grace.” Peter could have spoken of this as the salvation or inheritance or future glory, but by the term, “the grace” he not only speaks of all that God has done for us, but reminds us that no aspect of our salvation, past, present, or future is ever earned. It is the gift of God, freely given and this applies even to the rewards that are given for faithfulness. Why? Because is it only God’s grace that enables us to serve faithfully. Second, “brought” is a present adjectival participle which describes our future salvation as so certain that it is viewed as already on the way. "

--Q: when Peter says we should live daily looking toward the return of Christ, do we really have to do that? For some reason I've viewed it as a copout for not doing the things you need to do. Sure, I guess people who live each day for the return of Christ must be pretty humble people, but must we always go around so depressed about the fallen world, etc etc? I mean, it is a fallen world, but I've always believed it's better to go out and help people and evangelize or something rather than be like, "Oh this world is lost, I must only find fulfillment in Christ's return." Yes, I think that we should only find fulfillment in Christ, but not necessarily in His return...

"Our new life in Christ by grace through faith is designed to produce good works for which we were recreated in Christ (Eph. 28-10). But as the Savior warned in Mark 4:19 in the parable of the soil, the sower, and the seed, “the cares of life, the deceit of wealth and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it produces nothing.” Whatever draws our desires and affections away from Christ and His kingdom will of necessity become our master and control our lives. Sober Christian living is not random nor does it live for the moment as does the world, rather it lives with an undivided hope because it recognizes this world is passing away and everything in it."

--Q: I'm realizing now that this is a battle of wills. Does good Christian living have to be so sober? Perhaps it is just my pride and my unwillingness to take myself and my desires and ambitions off the pedestal and replace them with the Cross... I've always wanted to live an extraordinary life, or at least an exciting or significant one. I guess I've been telling myself that if I live for Christ, I can do really great and exciting things through the Holy Spirit. While this isn't necessarily wrong, I should be ready to accept that a life truly for Christ may very well be a life of little worldly significance (it might be boring too, or at least not what I've wanted my life to be). It will be a life of true humility, intense suffering, of taking up one's own cross. I guess I've never considered this. I never really knew the costs of following Christ because I'd been telling myself that my desires were actually God's desires for me. This goes with something that PB told me the other day: he told me to stop trying to make things happen the way I wanted them to happen. I guess I had so many desires, which led to impatience, disappointment, and lack of self-control. I just need to let go of all my worldly desires, to be willing to settle for Christ, even if it means I lose everything else. How demanding... honestly it's so difficult to even consider this!