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. 2 Peter 1:3-4
Welcome to my theme passage! These verses and their surrounding context have SO MUCH to teach me! There is so much depth and application to this passage that today will only afford one small tip of the iceberg. I'm sure I'll be revisiting it through the coming months to explore some of its other impactful truths. For today, though, let's just look at a promise that it offers, and how to apply such promises to our lives.
I distinctly remember the first time this passage had significant impact on my life. I was going through a really dark time in my life, where I felt so inadequate for life and ministry that I didn't want life to continue. A trusted friend and counselor took me to those verses, and asked me to read it over a few times, thinking about their meaning. At first, I was not quite sure what in the world they would have to do with me and my frustrations. I thought they were nice verses, but what impact were they supposed to have on my life? I can't say that I discovered this great 3-step program by which I could take any promise in the Bible and transform my life. Rather, it was a slow, painful, bumpy road to do this, but gradually the truth of these verses began to permeate my thoughts, change my pattern of thinking, began to impact my attitudes and, finally, my actions. During that year, I went from wanting to end my life to gaining the confidence in God that allowed me to take on one of the biggest challenges of my life: stepping out in faith as a missionary to deepest-darkest Klamath Falls where I had no home, no car, no office, no church family, few friends, very little active ministry, and no experience as a director.
So how do we take a promise – and apply it to our lives?
Evaluate the Context of the Promise
First of all, consider the passage itself. Think about the context, and determine that it is indeed a promise, or at least a truth that might as well be a promise. This particular one, "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness", sometimes seems to me more like Peter is just saying matter-of-factly that this is true, rather than offering a promise from God "God is telling you he's going to give you everything you need". I'm not sure if I'm expressing the distinction clearly or not, but let's just come back to the main point – this isn't just a nice principle of something that is generally, but not always true as a promise to which you may cling (like many of the Proverbs are found to be). It's also not an instruction or command – "you should (enter appropriate behavior here)". It's not a prophecy – "Someday you will have everything you need". I should pause here, though, and remind us that many/most promises ARE future-tense, and we just have to trust that they WILL be true, even if we can't see proof right now. In MY thought process (for what it's worth), I really do see this more as a statement of fact, rather than a promise. Whether it's a statement of fact, though, or a promise, it's something unseen, but true, and needs to be integrated into my life. So will you humor me, and hang on for the ride?
Evaluate the Conditions of the Promise
Secondly, ask yourself if there are any conditions that must be met – Is there something I must do or be, in order for this promise to apply to me? This passage is written "To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:"(v.1) – so indeed, Peter is talking to me IF I'm a believer. By the way, that's a quick tip – if you're reading in the epistles, the letters, of the New Testament, you'll often find that context within the first few verses of the book, where the author greets his audience. It also pays to learn the main audience of some of the other books of the Bible, too – even the gospels were written with a specific audience in mind, whether Luke was writing more to the Greek audience, or Matthew, who (if I remember right) was mainly addressing the Jewish audience. Nevertheless, in this situation, this truth/promise is written to the believer – i.e. ME!
Evaluate What the Promise Meant to the Original Recipient(s)
Okay, now we can start looking at what this promise meant to the audience to whom it was written. Remember that Peter was writing this to believers, but the main drive of this whole letter is to equip these believers to know that they are saved, but even more, that they would be able to discern and be wary of false teachers that would steer them away from that salvation. It seems to me that Peter was trying to help them know and trust His promises, and especially those of salvation. With that in mind, they needed to be ready to live like it (see the following verses, where they are challenged to live by faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love). So Peter told them that they had everything they needed for life AND godliness – so not just eternity, but to live a godly life now.
Begin to Apply the Promise to YOUR Life
With THAT further context, NOW we can start to apply it to ourselves. I can see that God HAS GIVEN me everything that I need to live the godly life that He is asking me to live. So now I know that fact. How does it go from a fact that I KNOW in my head, to a truth that impacts my life? This is one time where I envy the child who hears a promise from God. A child seems to almost automatically take such a truth that is taught to him and act like it's true, because he fully believes that it IS true. Us as adults often have developed a further filter taught by the hard-knocks of life that brings doubt, habits to overcome, peer pressure, and general rebellion. Not that kids don't have some of these same struggles, but often they have fewer of these, or at least are faster learners! Instead, I have a much longer process of taking this from truth to life-change – a process that will continue until heaven, I believe.
This won't be a perfect example, but let's walk through the process from me at the age of 23 when I started this process (at least as humans see it – God was working on me long before, I'm sure!). At 23, I was involved in full-time ministry. I loved God, I loved kids, I loved the challenge of ministry. But fear of failure was so much a part of my life, that each week when I would do the most challenging part of my job – demonstrate that week's Bible lesson for the Good News Club teachers – I would end up with headaches and tummy-aches, and generally HIGH STRESS. I would think about these teachers – some of whom had been my teachers as a child, others who were the "experts" on various parts of the lessons, and then think about me – this young whipper-snapper, who knew HOW to do it, but just couldn't get it to come out perfect. I would make a mistake – I don't even remember now what mistakes, or how drastic they were – and at that point, my thoughts would begin to spiral downward – first I would think about that mistake, and how awful it was. Then I would begin to think that made me an awful missionary. Then I would decide that that made me an awful Christian. Then I would begin to feel like that made me a terrible representative for my godly parents and family and church family. So of course that made me a miserable human being. So why should I hurt everyone else by living any longer, and then… you get the idea. I didn't understand the spiral concept at that time, but later another dear friend helped me to see that with that spiral of thoughts, the further I let it go, the faster the thought process would spiral into lies, faulty thinking, and eventually behavior based on those lies and faulty thinking.
Take Every Thought Captive
Instead, I began to learn that I had to "take every thought captive." 2 Corinthians 10:5 says "We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ". Is a thought that says I'm an awful missionary true? In my own strength, of course. But what is the TRUTH? THAT is the key question. If my thoughts are truly obedient to Christ, what will my thoughts be? First, that mistake probably wasn't as bad as I made it out to be, knowing my tendency at that time to take things out of proportion. Even if it was though, using our promise as a backdrop, I can look at the situation and say that if God has given me everything I need for life and godliness, then apparently, even at that moment that I messed up, God had provided everything I NEEDED. Sure, I wanted it to be PERFECT (in my eyes, at least!), but did GOD have those same expectations? He IS a God of order, He himself is Holy and perfect, and that's what I strive to live, but GOD, for his reasons, DID make sure that I had everything I needed in order to live that godly life at that moment. I could postulate that maybe he was using my mistake to encourage a weaker teacher, or that it was to help ME to learn to do better, or… but with or without that heavenly perspective of the WHY He would allow it, I could choose to trust Him.
Begin the Upward Spiral – Replace the Lies with the Truth
So let's take the spiral the other direction, instead of rapidly spiraling downward with the lies that I would choose to believe, what could this process look like? Instead of that first thought of how awful the mistake was, I can look at the truth. It wasn't perfect, but I can go one of two directions with this. Asking myself for the truth, I can ask if it was my best effort. If it wasn't, and it was because of my foolish lack of preparation, I can go one direction with it – confessing any sin, repenting, and asking for God to graciously use it for His glory despite me, and for the sake of His name, and still not spiral downward. For today's conversation though, let's assume that I wisely used the time that I was given, prepared diligently, and still messed up. Here I can choose to take that thought captive. When I start to think that that mistake makes me an awful missionary, I must take that thought captive, and replace it with the truth: "God gave me everything I need for life and godliness". To carry that thought to the next level of the upward spiral, I can be confident that any mistakes I made are under His control. Then I can realize that He allowed it, and perhaps there's an opportunity for me to grow from that mistake (consider what I can do to do better next time). Then I can thank God for choosing to use me despite of and within my humanness. Then I can be prepared and cheerfully watching for the next opportunity to serve as a missionary, confident that God will use me. Then in that next opportunity, I can avoid trembling in fear, but watch for how else I can serve others. How different this spiral looks!
Repeat
I'd love to say that this is an instant change, but the reality is that five minutes or five days later, I will probably start to think about that mistake or another, and threaten to spiral downward yet again. Again I must take that thought captive. Again I must continue to fill my mind with the truth. And again I must ask for His help to believe it. Eventually the truth about those mistakes will be my foundational response, not a struggle to believe, as a new habit is formed.
So here's my challenge for you: what Bible truth or promise is God reminding you of? Will you ask Him to help you learn how to spiral upward this week, taking those thoughts captive, and replacing them with His truth?
