1 Peter 1:13

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

Be HOLY 

The phrase, “… Gird up the loins” means literally to cover/wrap up/enforce the area between the lower rib & the hip (according to dictionary.com, the loin is regarded as ‘the seat of physical strength & generative power’; idiomatically, it means to ‘prepare one’s self for something, requiring readiness, strength or endurance.’
 
So to “…gird up the loins of your mind” would mean to prepare the part of the mind which generates power (or mental strength) to be ready & to endure the battle that is & will be taking place in our minds.
To be sober means to be in control, in the context of Holiness, we must be in control of our thoughts, words & actions. Always focus on pleasing God in these three ways remember love God with all mind, all heart & all strength. 
Our mind is reflected in our thoughts, our heart is reflected in our words & our strength is reflected in our actions.
To hope is defined (dictionary.com) as to ‘look forward with desire & reasonable confidence’, ‘to feel that something desired may happen’ & ‘to believe, desire or trust’ [the recurring word there is desire]. 
Can you hope without desire? Can I hope to be an architect, if i do not desire to be an architect? Can I hope to go to be with Christ if I do not desire to be with Him? 
Peter is saying here we should hope (desire) to the end the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Christ Jesus. We must desire to the end, because we do not know when the end comes, we must desire always. 
What must we desire? The grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Christ. Grace is defined in the following ways ‘elegance or beauty of form, manner’, ‘favour or goodwill’, ‘mercy or pardon’, ‘moral strength’.
We must desire the elegance & beauty, the favour & good will, pardon & mercy & moral strength that will come when Christ is revealed. Christ is revealed to us as we read & meditate on the Word (He IS the word made flesh)
Desire the Elegance & Beauty of Christ until in the end you become an example of Christ’s beauty & elegance
Desire the Favour & Goodwill of Christ until in the end you become a sample of Christ’s goodness
Desire the Pardon & Mercy of Christ until in the end you become a testimony of His love & Mercy
Desire the Moral Strength, Christ gives until in the end you become an example of Christ’s righteousness & a picture of His Holiness
Desire to be like Christ and when He appears we shall be like Him
 
“1 John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
Over the next couple of posts, I will be looking at 1 Peter 1:13-25 under the title (in the NIV) ‘Be Holy’. I hope you are enlightened and blessed

13Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

 14As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:

 15But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;

 16Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

 17And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:

 18Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

 19But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

 20Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

 21Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

 22Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

 23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

 24For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

 25But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

Unless we see Christ in the fullness of the suffering He has called us to partake in, we’ll never see or experience the fullness of the Glory to which He has called us to partake in

Luke 23:26 “…and on him, they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus”

How humbling it is, to carry the same Cross upon which humankind is reconciled with God. Unless you can see the honour & privilege it is to have fellowship with the Lord in the time of His suffering, this post will have little meaning to you.

In many ways, the act of Simon bearing the cross with or for Christ was symbolic of the kind of burden as Christians we must endure for our Lord Jesus: He had to endure the taunts, the abuse, the humiliation of the crowds; although they were directed at Christ, because of Simon’s nearness to Him through the bearing of the Cross, got him on the end of some of them. As Christians, we can expect to get on the end of some reproach for confessing Christ, for bearing His Cross, for carrying the burden of the gospel. We will get insulted, laughed at, abused, arrested, imprisoned or even killed just because we bear the Cross. We must remember, it is His Cross, and His burden so no matter what we endure because of it, He has suffered infinitely more for carrying & suffering it, than we ever will.

It says, Simon was “…coming out of the country” so I can imagine, he was travelling somewhere & had belongings or merchandise for whatever purpose he was travelling; again I can imagine, he would have to leave or drop those things, in order to bear the Cross. The moment we are called upon to bear the Cross, we must let go of everything we carry, so that we can uninhibitedly bear our portion of the Cross with Christ, we cannot hold on to our education, degrees, jobs, possessions, careers, spouse, desires & dreams and expect to carry the Cross. Maybe, just maybe, our Christian walk suffers so much & we suffer so much as Christians because, we try & carry the world we’ve created under one arm and drag the Cross along with the other, we can only go so far.

Simon, might have thought he was just, helping out Jesus. Oh, but had he known, that the very cross he was helping to drag was the tree upon which the Son of Man would lay His life for him & the whole world, perhaps, he would have carried it all the way, with tears in his eyes and a humble adoration for the Man next to him. And although we do not have the Cross to carry around at this point in time, it is what it stands for that must be significant to us. The Roman Cross was a symbol of shame, a public stigmatisation, the highest punishment, that was meant to deter others from the the crimes those hang on them committed. To bear that Cross with Christ is to endure in the suffering you’ll face because of Him. We should be ready to lose our jobs, friends & family because we publicly confess & bear witness of Jesus as Lord. When we do, we will Glory with Him in His resurrection.

Unless we see Christ in the fullness of the suffering He has called us to partake in, we’ll never see or experience the fullness of the Glory to which He has called us to partake in.