3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:3-8
God’s desire is to share His nature with us.
He knows we are broken, incomplete and in desperate need of renewal. This is why Jesus said to the crowd after feeding their stomachs miraculously with bread and fish, “Unless you drink of my blood, and eat my flesh, you’ll have no part of me.”
To ‘ingest’ to ‘consume’ the spiritual nature of God is to believe in Christ and be born again.
The things that God calls us to in His word (e.g. faithfulness, honesty, purity, love, humility) are not some random outward laws we can apply to our lives without a supernatural work. The DNA within the heart of God, as displayed in the perfect reflection of Christ becomes accessible in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He never asks us to be something that He is not. He desires us all to become like Him, inside out.
Be holy, ‘as I am holy.” How? By ‘putting on’ Jesus, by participating in the divine nature of God in Christ, through faith.
I love this passage in Peter because the focus is, as it is in the true Gospel, on the power of God, not man’s response. It was God who ‘gave’ us this unmerited precious promise of salvation – the past, present and future nature of glorious salvation! He’s the one who not only made the way for redemption, but now invites us in, through the power of His Spirit to walk, live, be, something new.
It’s like God has furnished us with a packed suitcase, it’s over-packed actually, zipped up but ready to burst open once we look to Christ. It’s through knowing Him, says Peter, that we are introduced to the great gifts inside the suitcase, and are able to participate in ‘putting on’ these attributes of God (Rom 13:14).
The promise? Peter says that we will not be unfruitful, we will not waste our lives, if we spend our energies on knowing Jesus and receiving the spiritual food in Christ.
He will fuel our energies, lift our souls, enliven our faith and deeds. God will use us, place us, introduce us to new and fruitful work in His harvest field.
Our job? Not to become religious doers or outward moralists, but press into knowing Christ! In Him we live, move and have our being (Acts 17:28). It’s He that clothes us.
Christianity is a Person. Jesus is a revolution of heart, old for new, and the new is the One who made it all. Let us dive into this precious gift, becoming the heart of God to the nations.