Salvation
So
then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to
be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our
Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you
with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters,
speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are
hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the
other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Therefore,
dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may
not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure
position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.
2
Peter 3:14-18
Pastor Watson Jones remembers learning to ride a bike.
His father was walking alongside when little Watson saw some girls sitting on a
porch. “Daddy, I got this!” he said. He didn’t. He realized too late he hadn’t
learned to balance without his father’s steadying grip. He wasn’t as grown up
as he thought.
Our heavenly Father longs for us to grow up and
“become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”
(Ephesians 4:13). But spiritual maturity is different from natural maturity.
Parents raise their children to become independent, to no longer need them. Our
divine Father raises us to daily depend on Him more.
Peter begins his letter by promising “grace and peace
. . . through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,” and he ends by
urging us to “grow in” that same “grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:2; 3:18). Mature Christians never outgrow their need
for Jesus.
Watson warns, “Some of us are busy slapping Jesus’s
hands off the handlebars of our life.” As if we didn’t need His strong hands to
hold us, to pick us up, and to hug us when we wobble and flop. We can’t grow
beyond our dependence on Christ. We only grow by sinking our roots deeper in
the grace and knowledge of Him.
Where do you feel your dependence on
Jesus? How is that a sign of maturity?
Jesus, thank You for walking
alongside me as I grow in my relationship with You.
Our Daily Bread – November 26, 2019