May God give you more and more grace and peace as you GROW in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. – 2 Peter 1:2
What a great blessing to start out our week. This is why I pour a cup of my morning coffee each day and sit down to spend time with God. I desire to grow in my knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. This morning I noticed in the first chapter of Peter’s second letter three different ways to GROW in our knowledge of Him.
By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by COMING TO KNOW HIM, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. – 2 Peter 1:3
The first way to grow in our knowledge of God is obvious – by coming to know him. When we come to God, intentionally spending time in His word and bringing every detail of our life to Him, we grow closer to Him. Our understanding of this Almighty God increases each day as we soak in His Scriptures and pray to Him. Daily we GROW in our relationship with God.
And because of HIS glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.
In view of all this, make every effort to RESPOND TO GOD’S PROMISES. – 2 Peter 1:4-5
So a second way to grow in our knowledge of God is to respond to His promises. God promises that He has given us everything we need to live a godly life. Because He is a glorious God and an excellent God, He is able to promise us the possibility of a godly life. He makes it possible by enabling us to share in His divine nature, with which we can escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. So when our human desires say to sin and the world is pulling us to sin, God promises that He has given us the ability to choose holiness – to respond to the Spirit instead of to the sinful nature.
But we still have to RESPOND to His promises. We have to accept the gift given. By His grace, we can grow in our knowledge of Him and, in response, claim His promises. Peter explains how this growth takes place and what it looks like.
Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.
The more you GROW like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.
So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. DO THESE THINGS AND YOU WILL NEVER FALL AWAY. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. – 2 Peter 4b-11
A third way Peter mentions we can GROW in our knowledge of God is through experiences. He spoke of his own eyewitness account of the Transfiguration of Jesus and then how that experience increased his confidence in the message of Jesus Christ (v. 16-18).
Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place – until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God. – 2 Peter 1:19-21
Because of His grace, we are able to come TO Him, respond to His promises, and grow from our experience OF Him. In all of this, we grow in our knowledge of who He is – not just because we understand what we are reading, but because we are experiencing Him firsthand. He fills us with His Holy Spirit and begins to speak through us!
WOW! I love God’s plan of redemption. It’s about so much more than the forgiveness of my sins. It’s about a relationship – a growing process that produces godly living and magnificent experiences! So, I wake up each morning and pour myself a cup of coffee. Then I sit down with my God and His word – the words that are LIKE A LAMP SHINING in a dark place. And then I experience Him; I experience Christ the Morning Star shining in my heart. And I GROW…by grace…through faith…coming to Him…claiming His promises…and daily experiencing Him! Praise God!!!