You don't do it alone

It seems that these days people often start their walk with Jesus by treating it as though they have crossed the finish line of a race.  Since the race is over and they are now "good" and have earned their way into Heaven, they can just keep living how they live.  Surely they will meet God someday face to face, he will pat them on the head and fuss over them a bit, and they will pass into eternity having met the standard.  Perhaps then they can just live in eternity as they live now.  They'll be with friends and family again and, oh yeah, they'll see God sometimes and that will be great too.  Surely Heaven must be like the best all-inclusive resort that we've ever been to, mostly to bring pleasure to us and sometimes to interact with God.  The trouble with this kind of thinking is that it just isn't true and is not supported by scripture.

When I first decided to walk with Jesus in college, I battled some of these mindsets.  To me the way to grow as a Christian was by doing the things I saw other Christians doing and speaking the things I heard them speaking.  They read their Bible a lot so I did as well, and I learned a lot during that time.  I heard some of them talk of Jesus often while they were walking around the Texas Tech campus, so I tried to copy their speech.  I just didn't know any better, and I look back at those times and shake my head because my thinking on what it means to be a Christian was so superficial.  But I was new to it and I didn't know better!

And yet there were moments during that time where Jesus really did a work in me.  I distinctly remember a time with him in Guadalupe River State Park.  It was dawn and I woke up early, and as the brilliant sunrise started I could do nothing but crouch with my face to the ground and worship him.  It still is one of the most real moments I have had with him.  I knew he was there with me in that moment.

Some of you may be like me, wondering how you can become more godly and how you can know Jesus better.  How, really, do Christians grow?  The truth is we already have everything we need to live a godly life.  In my first and second post about 2 Peter chapter 1, we looked at how you and I can possibly live a godly life and grow in it.  

Today we will continue looking at Peter's words from 2 Peter 1.

5 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, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

Peter starts with the phrase "make every effort" to respond to God's promises.  We can easily gloss this over and turn it into nothing but pure effort on our part, but that is not at all what Peter was saying.  The first part of the sentence "in view of all of this" points to what he previously had written, which was that we already have everything we need to be able to live a godly life.  That's because we have God's Spirit in us if we follow Jesus.  

Peter wants us to remember that while putting in effort toward some things that he lists in later sentences.  The actual word used for "make every effort" means "applying or bringing alongside."  It seems we have to keep our mind on the Christ we have with us in order to work toward the things Peter talks about.

After Hurricane Ike we had a tree on our property that fell over.  Since I had nothing else to do, I cut it up into firewood with my chainsaw.  The trouble was that the stump was still in the ground.  It had roots that went everywhere and were pretty deep.  Try as I might I couldn't pull it up, even after digging around it and getting several people to pull on it.  It just would not move.  So instead I went to get my truck and a chain.  I wrapped the chain around the stump and around the frame of my truck, put it in gear, and the stump pulled out really easily.  Incidentally, as a man, we love doing things like this!

The point is that I could not pull the stump on my own.  I needed some serious help.  The truck certainly could pull the stump out, but I needed to work with the truck to make it come out of the ground.  This is in a way like the Lord works in our lives.  He can do anything, literally anything.  But if we are really going to let him rebuild us and do a work in us, we have to let him do that work and focus in the direction he wants us to focus.  Otherwise, nothing in us will change.

According to Peter in verse 5, the starting point for a Christian is faith.  That's the moment we believe in Jesus, that he died for us to pay the penalty for our sins, and that he rose from the grave.  That's our first step with the Lord.  We know who Jesus is and want to follow him because we love him.  And this is the moment when we shake hands, as it were, and introduce ourselves.  We have crossed the starting line, and the marathon has begun.

Peter continues the thought by saying we need to add "moral excellence" and "knowledge" to our faith.  And based upon his previous language, we must work hard and focus on doing those things!  Yet we have to remember that our efforts must be made as we look to Jesus for the strength to do it.  In the Bible, the Pharisees worked very hard at moral excellence on their own, yet they didn't know God at all.  They are an example of what happens when a "religious" person (not a Christian) tries really hard to clean up their life.  They may succeed in some areas but their focus produces a dry, stale, unappealing look to anyone around them.  I think many who regularly attend church these days would fall into this category.  They try to do less of some of the bad things they used to do, but are perplexed that they just are always fighting these impulses.  I think they often give Christians a bad name because they exhibit all of the strictness with none of the love.  And that's not how it is supposed to work when you know Jesus.

That leaves the question about what moral excellence and knowledge really are.  I think Jesus did a great job of outlining those things.  In Matthew 5 Jesus lays out the need for humility, meekness, pursuit of justice, mercy, purity, peacemaking, and enduring persecution.  He teaches about controlling anger, lust, divorce, promises to others, seeking revenge, and loving enemies.  In chapter 6 he talks about giving to the poor, prayer, fasting, use of money, and worry.  He just goes on and on.  If you want to know how to work on living a morally excellent life, just look to what Jesus said and actually go obey them today.

If you are like me, you don't always want to do that.  Sure, its easy to agree with yourself that taking revenge is bad when you read Matthew 5 and for some time you may actually be able to pull that off.  But then someone stabs you in the back at work and you become angry.  Or a family member says an unkind word about you behind your back and you hurt from it.  Or you open your phone and begin reading the hateful and spiteful comments many of the people you know are making on social media.  It is even more difficult after watching your favorite TV or reality TV show or YouTuber, where revenge is promoted and even celebrated.  Refusing to take revenge is easy until your emotions get involved.  We can't do that on our own.

Instead in the moment we must remember what Jesus said about taking revenge.  And I think we need to take it to the Lord right then and there.  I'm not saying to drop to your knees in the middle of your cubicle, although you can do that.  You just need to find a quiet place to go to your master and ask for the strength to not take revenge.  If you sincerely go to him in those moments, you will find the strength to not take revenge.  And stay in that place with the Lord as long as it takes.  That's what Christianity is all about.  It is knowing the right things to do which comes from regularly reading your Bible, and then getting the strength from the Lord to actually do those things.

Following Jesus is not about you being the Lone Ranger.  In fact, it isn't about you at all.  It is about a fully surrendered life to the one who is able to make you morally excellent as he is.  It is a relationship.  The Bible is not a book about a bunch of amazing people.  It is about a God who worked in the lives of ordinary people to do extraordinary things.  Many of them were only morally excellent, and only in moments, because in those moments they relied upon the Lord.  You can do the same thing.  But first you must recognize that you can't be morally excellent all on your own.

I encourage you this week to study, really study Matthew 5.  Then take your learning to the Lord and be bold enough to ask him to put you to the test on these things this week.  He's quite responsive on those kinds of prayers!  It will be challenging, but the benefit you get is that you will get so much closer to Jesus as he gives you the strength to endure those things.  And you'll later look up and realize that he is shining through you more than ever.  At that moment, you are truly different, and that's what our world needs to see.

Great promises that already apply

In my last post I shared what the Lord has laid upon my heart with regard to 2 Peter 1:3-4, and we will look today at the last part of that passage to complete the thought Peter is making.  It will make more sense if you read the first post though.

3 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. 4 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.

Jesus is unlike anyone you or I have ever met.  He just is.  We can start with the fact that he is divine and all-knowing, which I'll explore with you in a later post.  However, he's so much different from any human relationship we have!  He knows everything about you, the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the strengths and the weaknesses, the victories and the failures, the good thoughts and the very bad thoughts.  Nothing is hidden from him.  And even though he knows you in this way, he still wants relationship with you.  And nothing you can do in this life will ever make him lose interest or give up on you.  With humans this happens all the time.  With God, it just doesn't happen ever.

Somehow through Jesus's "glory and excellence," we receive the gift of promises he has given.  What does that mean exactly?  Let's look at some wording to understand.

The original text for "has given" is important.  It means that something has been bestowed on us.  We don't use that word often, but it means that there has been a great gift given to someone.  It also means that what was given was given as an honor to someone else.  This is more than me just giving you a pencil.  This would be like a wealthy person giving you a huge house just because they wanted to.  Whatever has been bestowed on you and I is a huge gift.  This same word was used in the book of Mark when Pilate gave Jesus's body to Joseph of Arimathea.

The second important word in verse 4 is "promises."  This is not an ordinary promise.  This is a promise that is made publically, as in it is being shouted over a loudspeaker or public address system.  Such a promise must be a big deal.  For example, I might promise to you that I'll come pick you up at a certain place in 20 minutes.  That isn't worthy of any great pronouncement to the world.  Nobody else but you would care.  This type of promise carries such weight that it is worthy of announcing to the world.

Peter's language communicates that the promises being made from Jesus are very great and precious.  Peter used this same descriptive language when describing Christ's blood (1 Peter 1:19) and a Christian's faith (1 Peter 2:7;  2 Peter 1:1).  The promise being described is important and valuable.

What then are these promises that Peter describes?  Well, two of them were stated in verse 3.  We have the promise of a new birth, the promise of God's protecting power (v 5), and the promise of the Spirit's power in our lives.  What can this mean for me in everyday life?

When we decide to cross the starting line of the marathon of Christianity, an important thing happens.  It is as though we have been born once again.  In practical terms that means that whatever person you were prior to crossing that starting line is dead.  That person is gone.  All of the horrible things that person said and did and thought are all gone.  They are in the past, and the door to the past is shut and locked.  We cannot travel that way again.  And since it is a new birth, you are made into a new person.  That process begins in that moment of first having faith in Jesus and it only grows from that point.  A new birth is exciting because it is a totally new person who has never lived before.  They have different characteristics and values and morals and thoughts and behaviors than the other person because they are entirely new.

Think of it in this silly way.  Most American adults have owned several vehicles.  Back when I went to college I had a 1993 Ford Taurus.  It got me around, it was comfortable, and it got good gas mileage.  I didn't really like the car though.  I wanted a truck, and because of my immaturity at the time I did everything I could do to rid myself of this Taurus and get a truck.  But that never happened.  I stuck with that car until it had 123,000 miles on it and could barely shift gears anymore.  A lot of stuff didn't work on it by that time and I was quite relieved when I went to trade it in for a much newer, nicer car.  I was glad that Taurus died.

The thought never crossed my mind at the time to keep the Taurus and rebuild it.  Could I have done that?  Sure!  I could have refurbished the engine or bought a new one.  I could have replaced the transmission and given it a new paint job.  I could have done all of the things necessary to make it "like new" again.  The reality, though, is that it wouldn't have been new.  It would still have been a 1993 Ford Taurus.  It would still have been in existence since it was built by Ford in 1992.

You see, God knows this about old and new.  That's why he doesn't take the old you and dress you up in better clothes and change a couple of things about you to make you the "new" you.  It wouldn't work.  There would still be old and new parts of you and you would never fully function in the capacity of new, no matter what was done.  That's why you and I, when we decide to cross that starting line of the marathon called Christianity, begin taking steps as an entirely new person.  The old is gone.  The old is in the rear view mirror and the image is getting smaller and smaller with time.  The new is where we are now and is up ahead.  That's the way God works in us.

I'm certain that some of you hold on to your past self, the old, dead you.  There are things in your life that you did or said that have caused deep regret.  There are things you did that you wish now you could take back.  The Apostle Paul would sympathize with you.  He had plenty in his past that he wished he could take back.  But he came to realize that Christ simply wanted him to look ahead to the relationship they had right now versus the relationship they didn't have in his past.  He describes it this way in Philippians 3:

12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,[d] but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

You see that Paul also refers to the Christian life as a race.

These promises from 2 Peter 1:3-5 tell us something important.  We have access to God everyday.  Since we have access everyday, his very divine nature can work through us everyday if we allow it.  We don't need to do anything different or special because those things have already been bestowed upon us.  They are already there, in the new you!

If you find that living out this kind of Christianity is hard, you are not alone!  It IS hard, and some days are harder than others.  That's why you and I must be in daily relationship with the Lord.  Only through that do we find the necessary surrender so he can work out these great promises in us.  Jesus himself even said that this race is a hard one.

Matthew 7:13-1413 “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell[a] is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. 14 But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

If Jesus said it would be hard, then it is going to be hard!  Count on it!  Pray about it!  But above all things, just don't give up.  The reward for running this hard marathon is that you know Jesus more personally and you see him working through your life in larger and larger ways.  And as you see that larger work he is doing, you only want more of it!  That is the life of beauty and significance that most of us really want, but oddly it comes from dying first.

So if you are not a follower of Jesus and you have a past, know that this new birth can be you.  You really can leave it all behind, and Jesus will help you to do that.

If you consider yourself a Christian but feel stuck, there is hope.  You already have everything you need to live a godly life.  And what you have is Jesus himself.  Spend time in prayer and in silence with him.  Put in the time to get to know him and to speak to him.  He will meet you in that moment, right where you are.

May God reveal himself more and more to each of you as you pursue a deeper relationship with him!