February 6

II Peter 1:1-10 has some remarkably encouraging advice for the believer. Because Peter, the impetuous apostle is the author of this book, we know he understands our tendency to be focused on worldly things rather than on the Lord’s high purposes. It was he who informed Jesus that He should never experience the cross. It was he, who, but for the Lord’s grace, would have fallen away when he, because of fear, denied Jesus three times.

Like Peter, we tend to see things from a worldly perspective, so his counsel is especially pertinent to us. He gives us the understanding of how to elevate our thinking from the fleeting and temporal to the eternal. Here he admonishes his readers that they are blessed with the grace and peace that the Lord desires to impart to people of faith.

Then he goes on to indicate further steps toward realization of the divine promise and power HE has invested within each of us. Peter reminds us that through Christ we have been given all things that pertain to life and godliness…in order that we may be “partakers of the divine nature.” We are not to gloat in this, however. Rather, we are to cultivate within ourselves those attitudes that enable the divine nature within us to grow!

How do we do that? Peter says it is by, “adding to our faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, kindness, love.” He further states that if we nurture these qualities within ourselves, we will not be “barren or unfruitful in the things of Christ; we will not be like those who lack these attributes and cannot see the spiritual truths for the temporal distractions. Peter assures us that if we will grow in these godly attributes, we shall never fall.