"By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for
living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one
who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And
because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious
promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and
escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires."
This is why it is so important for us to look down deep into why we believe in Jesus and learn to
belong to Him. It says, "...God has given us everything we need to live a godly life." The way we do this is by knowing Him and the way we know Him is by studying Him (relationally). God is not trying to make it difficult to know His Son, He has given us everything we need, we just need to seek Him. When we open our heart to Him and devote ourselves to Him we experience the strength that comes from Him. It says because of His excellence and glory we have all we need to live our day to day lives not driven by what we lust for or feel we
deserve, but we die to ourselves and live to do His will. When we think we need something that we want so bad our flesh can't stop craving it we say ( not my will) and we turn to Jesus for strength.
This is true because it us in God's word and we believe and have faith in Him because we belong to Him. Peter shares, "these are the promises that enable you to share His Devine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires." No matter what our human desires are we can die to them because of who we are in Christ. We can always make excuses for why we choose the things we do but when we say yes to Jesus and our life becomes living to glorify Him we don't see our choices as that important.
We might think this is to hard and it is good enough just to believe but Jesus really does want us to show our love with obedience. He is not asking us to show how perfect we are or how perfect we can do something, He is asking us to know Him so much that we live how the Spirit is guiding us and we know Him so much that we can finish our thoughts the way He would because we know Him. This world will always say we should get this or get that or do this or do that but we know if we stop to pray and listen we will be given exactly what we need even if we don't agree. Love is not having to be right but it is willing to be there for others. As I sit on my couch for the seventh week after breaking my neck and back I see how no matter my circumstances I still need to glorify God in my actions and life choices. I can choose to be down or I can choose to be a light. God has given me the tools to be a light so I need to continue to learn and grow so He gets the glory.
I love what Peter shares in 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 5-7, "In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone." The very first thing says "make every effort". Are we making every effort? Sometimes I can say no and that is not alright with me, so I pray to be stronger and I study more and I try and become less of me so I can shine more of Him. John the Baptist had it right on when he said this to his followers and as I have learned by God's word He has given me people to study, stories to read, miracle to see and love that is unfailing. Let's all focus on Him and give, serve and love because He has done that for us. Amen