Wow, it's Monday already...

Good grief! This weekend flew by - Darrel, Doug, Brian, & Gary all went fishing in Branson this weekend and Jill and I sang at the Relay for Life at the park. Saturday, Lindsey and I went shopping for the wedding Tuesday night, and Sunday night the FUNatics cooked for Bible School. I have to say that Kim and Jessica looked so cute raising the roof to "Check It Out Now - To - God - Be - The - Glo---ray!" Ha!! Ok, on to more serious things.

I want to look at a passage of scripture that once again took me to the edge of something I often find myself reverting back to at times. Why is it so hard to accept what Christ has done for us as being an all-inclusive work? All I can see is my failures and hear the taunting of the enemy. Let's look at 2 Peter 1:1-10.

1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle (special messenger) of Jesus Christ, to those who have received (obtained an equal privilege) of like precious faith with ourselves in and through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
2 May grace (God's favor) and peace (which is perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts) be multiplied to you in [the full, personal, precise, and correct] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3 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).
4 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.
5 For this very reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence),
6 And in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety),
7 And in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love,
8 For as these qualities are yours and increasingly abound in you, they will keep [you] from being idle or unfruitful unto the [full personal] knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).
9 For whoever lacks these qualities is blind, [spiritually] shortsided, seeing only what is near to him, and has become oblivious [to the fact] that he was cleansed from his old sins.
10 Because of this, brethren, be all the more solicitous and eager to make sure (to ratify, to strengthen, to make steadfast) your calling and election; for if you do this, you will never stumble or fall.

This section of scripture is incredible! If you hear me teach very much, you'll know that I'm big on having a means to an end. That's because I am very list oriented, I think. Anyway, Peter tells us that by means of what God has bestowed on us (which is everything needed to live this life) He has also given us His precious and great promises so that we don't have to be bound anymore to sin and can now share in His divine nature! How awesome! Now because we are partakers of this nature, we possess virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love - it says so in verse 8 - these qualities are yours! Now it's our chance to do a little exercise. You can take one look at me and see that I am not a fan of working out...ha...thank God for His grace! The same applies here. Peter is not laying a burden on us that we had better get ourselves into shape or we're going to be in big trouble, mister! No, I think he is simply encouraging us to exercise and develop these qualities that are already in us - he just wants us to grow so that we can be fruitful and so that we aren't blind to things. Verse 9 says that if we think we don't have these qualities, we are oblivious to the fact that we are cleansed from our old sins! I am so like that! I forget what Christ has done for me - I revert back to that old fear that I have to work for my salvation - that it's based on the merit system. But God's unmerited favor has taken care of all the old sin. Let's put on our spiritual eyes and see that we really do possess these qualities, even if we don't see them coming to the front all the time. They're there - deep down inside you - they are a part of the righteousness of Christ that we obtain when we surrender our lives to Jesus and accept His sacrifice as an atonement for our sins!

So now that we realize we have these qualities in us, they just need a little exercise and developing to be seen and experienced in our everyday lives, what's holding us back from doing it? Let's employ every effort to exercising our faith so that we can develop some Christian energy! Then let's exercise that energy so we can develop some intelligence (Lord knows we can all use some most of the time! ha!). Now let's exercise and use that intelligence so we can develop self-control in our lives - ouch! We like to think we have no control over the yucky things in our lives - but if we just stop and think, we can stop ourselves from doing whatever it is that's not profitable! Next, once we exercise self-control we can develop a steadfastness to carry us through the hard times. After we've exercised being stable and steadfast and patient for a while we will develop godliness. This will bring us to the point where we can develop a little brotherly affection and finally a true love that is a Christ-like love. That is our end! That unselfish love that led Christ to the cross can be a reality in our lives toward others! Then here's the exciting part - look at verse 10 - all this strengthens and steadys our calling, and it says if we do this we will never stumble or fall! How would you like a life where you didn't struggle with stumbling or falling all the time? It's a lofty goal, but one that is attainable I believe.

Hope this is as encouraging to you as it is to me. Have a blessed day and we'll talk again soon!