who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (ESV)

who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. (NIV)

When I read the word Peter uses about our salvation—sheilded (“to be kept under watch”)—my mind drifts back to Haiti. My journey there began just after the 2010 earthquake. The nation was in total ruin, cities destroyed, lives lost. 

Yet, hope wasn’t. 

I know this because I stood beside congregations worshiping under open skies, not by choice, but because the walls around them had crumbled. I heard prayers rise louder than sirens. I watched joy breathe in streets where destruction should have suffocated it.

You learn something standing on cracked ground—something you can’t understand in other places: We have a hope that stands when everything else falls. 

This hope isn’t in what we see but in what we can’t yet see. (Hebrews 11:1) What we see is temporary, but what we can’t see is eternal. So, being guarded for eternity doesn’t always look like being spared today.

The power of Christ is protecting our future salvation. It’s untouchable and unfadable. And this hope is what protects us today. It’s what gets us through the waters and earthquakes. 

This hope is not just something we hold onto—it is something holding onto us.

Peter reminds us that we have been saved, and yet we are still waiting for salvation to be fully revealed (1 Peter 1:5). We have access to it now by faith, but the fullness of it is still coming.

So what do we do when we’re standing among fallen walls, or in a hospital room with a dying friend? We remember—this is not the end of the story. Our temporary bodies aren’t shielded like our eternal ones are. Our hope isn’t for today, it’s for tomorrow. There is more salvation to come. A fullness we haven’t seen yet.  As this life fades, our true life becomes clearer, up until the day it is fully revealed. 

On that day, we won't have to hope anymore. Our hope won’t be lost; it will be complete. Our salvation will be revealed.

Christ has saved us. Christ is saving us. Christ will save us completely.

Written by Joe Rigelsky