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His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
2 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

If I went to the store and bought you a beautiful dress or suit, but you chose to continue to wear the clothes you already have in your closet, would you be enjoying that new dress or suit? Not really. You might enjoy looking at it occasionally, but you wouldn’t really be getting all the enjoyment you could out of it.

Or what if I were suddenly very rich, and I bought you a tremendously beautiful mansion, but you chose to live in a shack, would you be enjoying that mansion? Of course not.

Well, God has done more than that. God has given us the Kingdom, here on earth, but when we don’t move into that Kingdom, it’s a whole lot like choosing not to live in the mansion someone’s given us.

This week’s Resting at the River’s Edge includes 2 Peter and the first chapter teaches us about moving into that mansion. Let’s look at some of the verses a bit closer.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.
2 Peter 1:3a (NIV)

I want to pause there. By His divine power. Peter is talking about God. By God’s power, He has given us everything we need for living a godly life. Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you find yourself saying “God, I don’t think I can do this anymore?” or “God, I can’t”? When you find yourself in that place, remind yourself – God has given you everything you need to live a godly life.  And then go to the rest of the verse:

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
2 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

We receive everything we need by through our knowledge of Him. So when we’re struggling in life, perhaps we need to spend more time learning more about Him – getting to know Him better. Study His Word, spend time with Him in prayer and worship Him regularly. Enter His awesome presence regularly.

You know, when you live with someone, you get to know them. When you got married, you learned a whole lot more about your husband or wife than you knew before you lived with him or her, didn’t you? Of course you did!

We must live in the presence of God – in His secret place – to know Him.

Those who live in the secret place of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
Psalm 91:1 (NLT)

We’re going to study that verse in detail soon. But first we’re going to look closely at 2 Peter 1. Let’s first look at the rest of verse 3:

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
2 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

The One who has given us everything we need for life and godliness is also the One who has called us to Himself. He is the One who bid us to come to Him; who invited us and made it possible for us to come to Him.

He did that because of His own glory and goodness. When Jesus died on the cross for your sins and mine so that we might come to know God, He didn’t do it begrudgingly or out of a sense of duty. He did it because it is part of His nature to give. Because of his own glory, because of his own goodness, he called us to come to himself

Meditate on that. Think about it. And while you think about it, think about what came from that act…The next verse reminds us of a very important point. Let’s start with verse 3 and read on:

³His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
2 Peter 1:3-4 (NIV)

Through God’s glory and goodness, He has given us great and precious promises. What are some of these promises? Take a minute to name them for yourself. Take more than a minute and journal your thoughts.

The verse goes on to tell us the purpose of the promises. It says that God has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them 2 things can happen:

1. We may participate in God’s divine nature.
2. We can escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

God has given us everything we need to live Godly lives. No matter what our circumstances are.

If you’re struggling, get to know Him better. Study His Word, spend time with Him in prayer and worship Him regularly. Enter His awesome presence regularly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 8th, 2013 at 8:28 am and is filed under Blessed Life, God's Faithfulness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.