“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. 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.” 2 Pet. 3:17,18
Devotional Thought For The Day
Peter has been describing the end of the world – an utterly catastrophic and cataclysmic event for the entire cosmos. He has assured us of the creation of “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” [2 Pet. 3:13] He encourages us to continue on in faith and to devote ourselves even here and now to all that is good and righteous. He acknowledges that some people even back in the first century considered God’s patience with the world to be too generous [2 Pet. 3:9], but reminds all of us that God’s purpose in this is to insure that we reach repentance. Thus he negates all grounds for self-righteousness, requires all to acknowledge and confess our great sin and guilt, and warns that we should never forget our need for God’s gracious mercy, forgiveness, and cleansing from sin.
We can be fairly certain as to what judgment those impatient early Christians might come to if they were living today, nearly 2,000 years later. We may have the same impatience, and some people may even have used this as an excuse for giving up on God. We are heading toward another celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ – to this day our years are numbered on the basis of the presumed year of His birth. It is a great privilege and joy to contemplate God’s great love for us, His wondrous gift of forgiveness and salvation in His beloved Son, our Lord and Savior. Yet we too have longing and eagerness for “the day of eternity” to dawn with His glorious return. Peter encourages us to maintain the life of faith and love that God has blessed us with – and warns against the two chief temptations that derail Christians.
He urges us to continue growing in “the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Many Christians naively short-circuit the love of God by turning away from repentance to self-righteousness. They focus on how “good” they have become [in comparison to others], and consider confession of sin to be defeat. But the less sin we confess the less we grow in the grace and knowledge of God’s love. And in reality, “we love because He first loved us.” Only to the degree that we know and live in God’s gracious love are we able to love. And Christian faith is faith in Christ, His gracious mercy and forgiveness, and not faith in ourselves. So Peter warns us and advises us as to the source of Christian love and true goodness. We are saved by God’s grace in Christ, through faith alone, without any works or goodness of our own. Remembering this, and growing in this knowledge is crucial to faith and new life.
However, Peter is eager to warn of another danger to Christian faith and life, that of being “carried away with the error of lawless people” and losing our stability. It is a grave temptation, and some fall into it, to conclude that since we are already saved apart from God’s law, that we no longer need law and have no relationship with it at all. The result of this way of thinking is dismal and destructive. First, the definition of sin is lawlessness, behaving contrary to God’s good and gracious will, and His will is always love. So the lawless cut themselves free to violate God’s law with impunity and so to violate love. This can never be good. Further, cut off from law they no longer see need to repent and claim God’s forgiveness – they are free from law, lawless, and so they also erode away and destroy faith in God’s gracious mercy and forgiveness. The end result is that they end up in moral squalor with all the negatives that this brings, without hope of repentance and with no faith in God’s love to renew their hearts. I would guess we would all agree that this is certainly a loss of “stability.”
Continuing to affirm the validity of God’s law, and learning the ways of love more deeply and clearly, enables us to continue growing in our life of repentance and in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Continuing to grow in the grace and knowledge of God’s love moves and compels us to greater love and righteousness. All of this assures that all glory, honor, worship, praise, and adoration goes to Jesus “both now and to the day of eternity.” Yes, it is another year now that our Savior has not returned in glory, but also another year closer to His return. Yes, what is coming is astronomically better that what we currently enjoy, but growing in our knowledge of God and closer to Him in our love for Him is also a marvelous blessing. His patience with us allows this, and compels this – and we give all glory to Him now and forever.
Prayer For The Day
Dear Lord Jesus, calm our troubled hearts with the assurances of Your love for us, the promise that nothing will be able to separate us from Your love and salvation. Continue to teach us and to direct our hearts into Your love so that we may continue growing in our love for You and for others, and give us some of Your great patience. Grant us ever increasing stability of heart, mind, and spirit so that our teaching and our living glorifies You – now, and to the day of eternity. Amen.