Growing

 

DEVOTION

THE 2^ND LETTER OF PETER

GROWING

2 Peter 3:17-18

17 Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

NIV

Peter's closing remarks include the fact that we already know everything he has said, and that we are ever aware of the false teachers, the phony preachers who pervert the gospel, the bible, for their own benefits. Although it may appear they are winning in temporal benefits, they are bringing destruction upon themselves. Again, Peter warns us that we should not get carried away by these lawless men and fall from our secure position. It is so easy to get caught up in the words these lawless, deceitful, silver-tongued purveyors of lies. They sound good, but with the help of the Spirit, we see right through them and shut up our ears and hearts to their persuasive deceptions. Just as Jesus has told us, we remain in Him, and in being the branches remaining in the vine we are secure in our position and thus we continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior. Here is where we use that definition of grace that is other than an act of graciousness, such as the act of God's graciousness toward us. That is not something we are able to grow in, as we accept it and it is done. How can we grow in accepting his grace? So then, we would have to think this growing is in the definition of grace as his divine influence upon our hearts and how that is reflected in our lives. This we can grow in. We can always grow more or increase in His divine influence upon our hearts. This is the process of putting self aside and letting God have his way. We can understand that when we first became a believer, we still had much our self in control of our thoughts and behaviors, but as we grew in our relationship with Him, His influence became greater and greater in our attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors. However, we are still in need of growing in His grace, His influence upon our heart. Otherwise, if we said we had no more need to grow in His grace, we would be deceiving ourselves and calling God a liar. We also have to grow in the knowledge of Jesus. This is the Greek word gnosis, which simply means knowledge, to know, the act of knowing. There was a sect of Christianity in the past, and may still exist today, which worshipped knowledge more the knowledge of Christ. But we are not like that, knowledge alone holds little worth in eternal matters, so we must grow in the knowledge of Jesus, our Lord, and Savior. What does that mean? How do we gain more knowledge about Jesus? We study the scriptures, we explore His word and learn more about how he lived as an example to us and what he said about how we are to live. It is not that we read the bible once and we got it, we need to continue to read and to examine and explore, always finding more in-depth truths to adjust our thinking to be more and more like Jesus. So we conclude, as Peter did, as we continue growing in his grace and knowledge of Him.