For if these qualities are yours and increasing they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:8
I have said numerous times that holding the knowledge of our Father and his son, Jesus Christ, is eternal life. Not only life after we leave this earth, but a quality of abundant life we have been given as His children now.
We are exhorted to grow and increase in this knowledge every day. There is something yet to discover about the greatness of our God and the beauty of Jesus. I’ve emphasized a believer’s need to feed upon the word and develop their relationship with the Holy Spirit, solely to remind us all, that without both our growth and development is stunted and shallow.
The verses from Second Peter, three through eleven, provide us with a foundation to examine ourselves. God has not only made the way for us to enter His family, but He has provided for us everything, ALL things, that pertain to life and godliness by His divine power. What is His divine power, but the presence of His Holy Spirit who is the revealer of the heart and mind of God. He, as our teacher, takes the things of Jesus and declares them to us.
All things that pertain to life and godliness come through the knowledge of Him. Jesus told Philip, ‘he who has seen me has seen the Father’. Jesus is the word of God made manifest that we might see and believe. Through these realities we are invited to share His own glory and excellence. All that He is we are to become and it is through these exceeding, great and precious promises that our growth begins.
The Apostle Paul reminds us that as we behold Him ( 2 Cor 3:18) we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. We are changed into the images we behold. Our minds are renewed to the things we give attention to. We are either being transformed into the images and mind of this world or into His divine nature. We are designed and to become as He is, in this world.
I would love to have the heavens open and see Him, with my physical eyes, high and lifted up in His majesty but until, or if, that happens I must be content to see Him as He reveals Himself to me through the written words of this bible.
It is a PRESSING NEED in this hour for every believer to guard their hunger for the word. If the greatest temptation in the days ahead will be deception, we must hold to the word of truth. He is the way, the truth and the life. His word is truth. In a culture seeking to diminish everything about Jesus Christ, we as His people must, must, must, be diligent to guard what we give ourselves as the bread of our lives.
Peter sums up his opening remarks with the exhortation to ‘make every effort’; ESV reads ~
‘be all the more diligent’ meaning, (spoudē) "eagerness to do something, with the implication of readiness to expend energy and effort”
to add, (epixorēgéō (from 1909/epí, "appropriately on," which intensifies 5524/xorēgéō,) "richly supply everything an ancient chorus needed to be a grand production") – properly, lavishly supply, as suitable (apt) to outfit everything needed to accomplish a grand objective
~ to the foundation of your faith, all the qualities listed in verses five through seven.
A branch abiding in the vine produces fruit. Living in a vital union with Him, allows His divine power to work in us. Apart from Him, we can not produce His fruit.
Peter assures us from verses eight, ten and eleven, three things:
One, IF these qualities are ours AND increasing, they keep [kathístēmi (from 2596/katá, "down" and 2476/hístēmi, "to stand") – properly, set down (in place), i.e. "put in charge," give standing (authority, status) for someone to rule (exercise decisive force).].. us from being ineffective AND unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Two, IF we practice these qualities we shall NEVER fall.
Three, THAT in this way, there is richly provided an entrance into the eternal Kingdom.
Lacking these qualities lets us know that we are blind, have forgotten who we are and what we have been given through the blood of Jesus Christ. Pursuing them assures us that we are growing and increasing in the knowledge of the one who has called us to His own glory and excellence. A must needed and worthwhile pursuit for these days.