Month: March 2020

“Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:10-11[ESV] -> me: Peter spends the first 8 verses of his second letter giving exactly what we must do in our Christian life.  In these last 2 verses of this section he calls us to a self-awareness that tests our actions relative to our stated position as ‘Followers of Christ’.  In verse 9, just before these 2 verses, he says -> “If anyone does not have them [the qualities stated in my last quiet time], he is near sighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.”  BUT, as we confirm our calling and election by looking at our own heart and behavior, I WILL NEVER FALL!  This is such testimony about not just being in the word everyday, but also searching our own hearts through the help of the Holy Spirit to root out anything that no longer belongs.  I can’t imagine that I am alone in this -> When I let myself be taken up with this worlds concerns (materialism, politics, career, status, etc), even for just a couple of days, I can find myself so much further away from my walk than I thought a could be just a few days earlier.   Lord God, help me to be continually grounded in Your word, saturated in prayer, and full of a love for others that always causes me to forget about myself.

“But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:5-8 [NKJV] -> me: Man, I cannot get through many verses each day in 2nd Peter.  ‘For this very reason’ is pertaining to yesterday’s passage of ‘being given the exceedingly great precious promises’.  Virtue is excellence, resolution, and Christian energy in our walk.  Looking at how all of these things lead into each other and then ending with LOVE.  When we have gotten to this place in knowledge of our Lord and Savior then we will keep from being idle in our Christian life before Jesus returns.  Of all of these things – the one I must focus on the most is ‘self-control’.  Self-control in my emotions, my decision making in self-sufficiency, my desires, and my time.  The more I lean into the word of God and apply that learning to my life the farther I feel from where I want to be in my relationship with my Savior, but my faith is increased.  It is like there is a direct relationship between my spiritual self-awareness and the measure of faith God gives me.  Super humbling…

“For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue).By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature.” 2 Peter 1:3-4 ->me: NEW MEMORY VERSES!!  Holy smokes!  Two verses sum all a follower of Christ needs to know.  Our acknowledgement, trust, and belief in Jesus; the one who called us by modeling and providing us (through His word) His own glory and excellence, has led to God the Father, in His almighty power, giving us everything we need to live a life of godliness.  It is by His promises that we will have the hope and joy set before us, and be able to flee the evil desires and garbage of this world -> it is through these promises that we are able to share in the new heart condition that leads us to a life centered on the will and purposes of God.

“Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.” 1 Peter 5:7 ->me: Today I was reading through the rest of 1 Peter 5 and I found myself going back over the text and a small nuance jumped out at me.  In the ESV, verse 7 is a new sentence, but in the Greek this is not so.  The way it reads in the Greek is that the ‘throwing of anxieties on Him’ is how you achieve verse 6 which says ‘Therefore humble yourselves’.  Peter recognizes that a great barrier to putting others first and thinking of them as more important is the legitimate human concern ‘But who then will care for me?’ The answer is that God himself will care for our needs. He is able to do so far better than we are.  This then frees us up to set the needs of others around us.  We become ready to do work for others because we have laid every care of our own upon Jesus.  This tidbit evaded me yesterday and I am so glad that I read back over to catch all the context set in the whole chapter.  The Holy Spirit is so faithful!