by Eldon DeBoer
If you knew that you were going to die very soon, what would you talk about with your loved ones? What would you especially want to share with them? (For those of you who are working at discipleship ministries, this is especially for you. But it certainly applies to all believers in Christ Jesus, no matter where you are in your walk with Him.)
When the Apostle Peter wrote the letter that we know as 2 Peter, he knew that his testimony for Christ Jesus would cost him his life very soon (1:14). So he wrote to remind his loved ones of the truth that he had taught them through the years (1:12-15). And he emphasized the grace message. His greatest desire was that believers in Christ would understand the application of the grace of Jesus Christ in their life. He begins his letter with an emphasis upon grace and ends it with the parting challenge, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Even before Peter addresses attention to his upcoming departure from this life at the outset of his letter (don’t you love the way he expresses it), the Spirit moved him to challenge us with these powerful words (taken mostly from the New King James translation):
“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that apply to life and loyal living, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and goodness, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through sinful passions.
“But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance loyal living, to loyal living brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and are increasing, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in a more complete knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:2-8).
If it is the longing of our heart to be truly fruitful for God, we certainly will want “these things” to keep on increasing in our life. But what if “these things” are not increasing in a believer’s life? The answer to this question is found in verse nine of 2 Peter chapter one: “For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.”
Allow me to emphasize a prominent point from these verses. If a believer’s life lacks the character qualities of knowledge, self-control, loyalty to God, true brotherly friendship and love, he has forgotten something. He has forgotten the grace of God. He has forgotten the grace message that especially includes the cleansing from sin that Jesus made possible by His suffering on the cross.
No Grace, No Growth – Know Grace and Grow
If a believer does not continue to be occupied with Christ Jesus and especially His love and grace, she/he will not grow. The qualities Peter lists will not characterize his life. But a true knowledge of the grace message results in the application of God’s word and true growth in the Christian grace way of life.
A disciple of Jesus Christ cannot have true growth in his/her relationship with Him in the application of His Word apart from an understanding of the grace message.
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