Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Confirm Your Calling and Election
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 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.
Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.
2 Peter 1:1-14
There will be an infiltration against your rightness in Jesus Christ. The mark of maturity is graciousness and peace. What does this mean? Peace means stability, that we are anchored in Christ. Once we were all over the place, but now we are at peace no matter what sort of doctrine comes your way. We are no longer brought to and fro by all sorts of new words coming up, but we now are established in our stories, as our stories are established in Christ.
Stability is living in today, living anchored in Jesus Christ no matter what sorts of winds blow, no matter how doctrinal or familial they may be. As we continue to get to know Christ according to the Bible (and not the Bible belt, take note) we see the difference between the religion and reality, and we are naturally drawn to the reality of who Christ is, and we are therefore established in grace upon grace.
The mark of maturity is grace upon grace, and peace. Why do we have overflowing graciousness and peace and stability. It comes from us knowing Christ, and seeing that He has already granted and given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. If we run into religion and man-made thinking, we have a choice, whether to think that we need more, or if we already have everything we need - and obviously, Peter is saying that we don't need more, we already have everything we need in Christ, and we can draw not from the outside, but from Christ who is alive within us.
We are not waiting for God to empower us, we are not waiting for God to prepare us, because we know that God has already given us Christ, who is our power. We have everything we need in Christ, so we shouldn't entertain these thoughts that we need more than Him.
The resurrection answers our 'Friday questions': Am I okay? Is God angry with me? Am I forgiven? Are my sins cleansed? The empty grave has answered all these questions for us! Halleluyah! Am I blessed? Do I have power? Do I have wisdom? The empty grave has answered all these questions! Rightness and righteousness are right now, as Christ is with us right now. Don't stop at the cross, and see that Christ was raised from the dead and ascended, and we are made new and seated in heavenly places with Christ!
Because of this, we can say that God is just so awesome and excellent. When we realize this, this is when we genuinely become thankful; this is when we certainly celebrate Christ. Let the cross be the cross, let the resurrection be the resurrection, let Christ be Christ. Thank you, Jesus! Thank you!
It's so precious, what God has done for us! Think of all the awesomeness of what God has done for us.. it's magnificent! We have become partakers of the divine nature.. isn't that just beautiful? This is a truth, Christ is a living Truth that encompasses all time, and there is no such thing as a Truth that only becomes true in the future... we are made new creations, and we are made new right now! The reality we are in is no longer what we see and what we are bound to right now, but we have been ushered into the Truth which is timeless and boundless..
...Indeed, in Christ we live and we have our being.. there are many places we can live and have our being, but the salvation we have received has ushered us into a new life, a new existence, where we truly walk by faith, and not by sight. Our reality is no longer bound by time and space, as Christ who is our life and our everything is boundless and timeless.
We used to act and speak based upon what we see and taste, in order to reach God, or Nirvana, a 'higher plane', or supreme enlightenment... when the Truth is that it is God who was the one who came to us, and became as one of us, who could see and taste as us, and through His death, resurrection, and ascension with us here, we have been brought to act and speak based on eternity, to impact the temporal world. We couldn't climb to God. He came to our rescue.
All this is important for us to know before we even speak about how we ought to be living in this world. We shouldn't jump into morality and the way to talk and walk in this world without even appreciating what, or rather whose nature we have. We have Christ, and we have been equipped with Christ. Therefore, when we speak of knowledge, then we speak of knowledge of Christ. In knowledge of Christ, then we have self-control from the Holy Spirit, and we are able to persevere in Christ... ad so ad infinitum.
We can look at this in the sense of levels, like we work on self-control before perseverance... But the thing is, all of it is in a bundle, and this bundle is found and produced by the Holy Spirit moving in and through us. These aren't separate lessons and categories for us to study. Peter is calling us to know and trust Christ more and more every day so we would definitely be more effective and efficient in this world.
We must always, ALWAYS remember that we have been totally forgiven of our sins in Christ. We must always remember that our sins have been cleansed and taken away, separated from us as the east is from the west. We must always remember that we have been made as white as snow. We must always remember that Christ became sin for us to become His righteousness. We have been purified. Though we have sinned a billion times, God sees us and Christ in union and we are blameless, we are righteous and nothing can ever compromise and separate this union. We ought to know that we are 0% sinful as much as our 100% sinfulness has been taken away from us. We are 100% righteous as Christ is righteous - not just 100% righteous, but absolutely righteous. We must always remember this.
It is because of this that we know that we are not just not established in sin, but we are established in righteousness. It is because of this that we know that we are not just set free from fear, but we are free by perfect love, by perfect love, for perfect love, through perfect love. The more we take in Christ and the more we immerse and indulge in Him, the more we walk in grace and in peace. All the characteristics of Christ have been abundantly supplied to us.
Let's continue to preach this to ourselves and to others. Let's continue to encourage each other with Christ.
Grace and peace is multiplied to us in the true knowledge of Jesus. Are you not enjoying grace and peace? Then get to know Jesus more. He delivers grace and peace every single time.
We have everything we need through the knowledge of Jesus Christ. If you are pure and you know it, you will think pure, if you are pure and you know it you will act pure.
Be diligent and be ready to remind each other of these incredible truths!
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email me at jibee@rocketmail.com.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift His countenance upon you and give you His Shalom. - Numbers 6:24-26