2 Peter 1-3
Partake
of the Divine Nature
0 MIN READ
TMS Proverbs 3:9-10 Give First Fruits, Get Filled
9 Honor the LORD with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce; 10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
Observations
This is a great passage on giving God our best, to experience His best. If our giving honors God, He will honor us. Giving Him the first fruits means that He gets His “cut” of your increase (profit) first. In OT times, one gave the first fruits to God not just as a sign of His ownership, but also in faith that He would provide the rest to meet your needs. The author indicates that God will not just meet your needs, but do so abundantly (cf Philippians 4:19). This first fruits principle can also apply to your use of time. Give God the first portion of your life each day, and see how He provides during the rest of the day. Don't make Him “Lord of Your Leftovers” as the Israelites did in Malachi. See the series on Faithfulness with our Giving to God in the back of the TOYL book on Truthbase.net.
Application
Honor God with what You give Him, and see how He will honor you.
Prayer
God, thanks that I can always trust You to protect and prosper me when I am rightly related to YOU, acknowledging Your right to first place in my life. Amen.
2 Peter 1-3 Partake of the Divine Nature
This epistle is packed full of practical exhortations and truth of which many are ignorant, and false teachers avoid (since it exposes their false thinking and lifestyles). Those who wish to be richly rewarded in the coming Kingdom of Righteousness, would do well to read and heed, very diligently (just like Peter commands). If they do they will receive a rich reward as they share in the very nature of God. Those who don't will remain tangled in their sin, and wish they had paid attention when Christ returns.
2 Peter 1 Partake of the Divine Nature
A Greeting from Peter
1 Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: 2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Partakers of the Divine Nature
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 12 Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. 13 I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, 14 since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. 15 And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.Eyewitnesses of His Majesty
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.Application
God has given us great promises of partaking of His nature and glory, which we can receive by diligently learning and applying the truth. That's the only way we'll experience the blessing He has in store for us in the future Kingdom of the Messiah.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thanks for graciously saving me, and for the incredible promises of being able to share in Your very nature; may I spend my days on earth experiencing You in my daily life, so I can spend my eternity reveling in Your delights. Amen.
2 Peter 2 False Teachers Deny Lordship
Deliverance from False Prophets
1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13 suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness. 17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
Application
False teachers and their followers take the self-gratifying path that leads to destruction (Mt 7), rather than the self-denying path that leads to life.
Prayer
God, I pray that Your Holy Spirit would convict the arrogant and ignorant who ignore Your truth to teach what tickles the ears; and that they would repent of living for their temporal pleasure, so they can reap Your glory and You will receive greater glory. Amen.
2 Peter 3 It's All Gonna Melt
The Coming Judgment
1 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.The Day of the Lord
8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.Final Exhortations
14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.Application
Are you holy and blameless as you anticipate the destruction of everything you can touch and see and the reception of glory that never fades?
Prayer
God, thanks for your patience with me when I am slow to learn; please help me know and embrace truth, so I can live the kind of life which pleases You, and which You are pleased to bless. Thanks again. Amen.
Digging Deeper
God in a nutshell: God wants us to share in His nature and glory, and has given us all we need to get there, building upon our faith the characteristics that enable us to lead Christlike lives.
Build-a-Jesus: Jesus is the coming King who owns us, and whom we should totally serve.
Us in a nutshell: Believers must be diligent to grow in grace, and build upon their faith as God commanded if they wish to reap reward rather than discipline when Christ returns.
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