Encouragement to Grow

I have been going through an incredibly hard past few years. I've lost both my parents. I've miscarried 2 babies. The enemy has even come after my marriage. These last few years should have been marked with joy. I had received my promised child..the one i prayed for for years. How i wish I could have met each day since her birth with joy and gladness, but life and the enemy had to throw me some hands I wish i hadn't been dealt. It's through times like these that I celebrate passages of scripture that lead me back to all my joy. The joy found in relationship with Jesus. The joy of knowing I have obtained the faith. Sometimes, the world, the flesh and the devil will infiltrate your mind and try to make you believe lies. But as the song goes, "the truth is I am my Father's child. I make Him proud and I make Him smile. I was made in the image of a perfect King, He looks at me and wouldn't change a thing. The truth is I am truly loved by a God who's good when I'm not good enough. I dont belong to the lies, I belong to You, and that's the truth." I totally sung that as I was typing.

There are many passages in the bible that reiterate these truths to us. The one I'm studying in particular right now is 2 Peter chapter 1. Verses 1 through 15.

1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:

To obtain something is to put in effort to fully take hold of it. To grasp onto something in a way ut cannot be snatched from your hand. Kind of like winning a race. You obtain a medal at the end of the race. You put in effort to train your body to endure through the blisters, the cramps, the breathless moments when you feel like you can't go one more step, yet, you inhale deeply, exhale slowly, and push on.

Here, Peter is addressing those of us who have obtained and taken hold of the faith, the good news, the gospel. The faith required to know Jesus fully.

2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

Here he wishes us grace and peace because we have obtained a "knowledge" an intimate relationship that has opened our eyes to the truth of His great, overwhelming and abiding love for His own. It is through this knowledge that we can walk in His grace and in His peace through struggles, through trials, through temptations. It is through this knowlege that we can receive all His promises.

3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

Here, Peter expresses that through this divine exchange God has given us the power to overcome life's obstacles and detours. It is through this power alone, nothing of our mortal beings, that we can overcome. There is no human will power great enough, but through this divine exchange we have obtained the power necessary to walk through life in His righteousness, His godliness.

4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Here, Peter goes on to state not only has He granted us this power, but also the ability to partake of His own divine nature. We don't have to be those old people anymore. We have crucified those lusts, those sins on the cross of Christ and He has granted us the ability to "put on" a nature like His own. It is through crucifying those former lusts that we can escape that former corrupted state of existence.

5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

Here, our brother is telling us what is absolutely necessary for us to continue to grow in our spiritual walk. Without doing these things, without adding them on lavishly every single day, we run the risk of falling back into our former ways.

8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.

We as a race of being has short term memory loss. When we aren't constantly reminded we tend to forget. That is the vast importance of this passage. Peter understands all too well how we need to be reminded. And he stressed as much throughout the remainder of his time here, because he wanted as many as would, to receive and obtain all that the original 13 had come to obtain. Don't you?

13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;

14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.

15 Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

When life gets hard, look to God's word. It is alive with hope and healing for whatever you have need of at that particular moment. Fall in love with Him. He is so in love with you. This love, this relationship is what will bring you home.

Til next time, be blessed by being a blessing.