PRODUCTIVE AND USEFUL FAITH

 

PRODUCTIVE & USEFUL FAITH

II Pet. 1:5-8 So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. NLT

How much effort are you putting into applying the promises of God into your life? There are wonderful benefits to all who do. God does not give us promises for our selfish gain. His promises properly applied lead to godliness. They work together to strength and increase our faith. The natural progression of faith is that it changes us from the inside out. We develop souls that are grounded deep in the holiness and righteousness of Christ. We become like Christ in our ability to genuinely love others, which affects all of what we do.

To know God is different than knowing about God. To know God is to enter into a relationship with God that results in a heart change, a change that transforms us into godliness.

The more we develop in our godliness, the more productive we become in Christ. We become more than vessels of knowledge; we become useful servants of God. The promises of God were never intended to make us feel good; they are given to help us bring glory and honor to God in the way we live.

Reread today's verses. Look at yourself in light of them. What is God's Word producing in you? Are you becoming a person of moral excellence? Are you gaining in your heart knowledge of God? Are you growing in your ability to control yourself? Are you able to patiently endure whatever comes your way? Can you claim to be godlier today than you ever were before? Are you able to react to others in a loving way that reflects the love of Christ?

Standing strong on the promises of God will lead to a life that can answer yes to all of the questions above.

GOD'S PROMISES APPLIED

 

GOD’S PROMISES APPLIED

II Pet. 1:5 So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. NLT

God’s promises don’t do us any good at all if they are not applied to life. We will benefit from them only to the extent that we apply them. God’s Word is always true and helpful, but only if we put forth the effort to let it work in us. When God’s promises fail to work for us, the problem lies within us and not His Word.

When God’s promises are allowed to work in us, then our faith grows and we become the people of holiness God created us to be. Moral excellence is not achieved by accident. It comes from diligently applying God’s Word to our lives. The more we live by the Word, the more the Word lives in us. We become what we feast on. Achieving moral excellence is not an option for the believer; it’s God’s will and command for us.

When we get our hearts right with God, then we soon discover we know God better. The more we grow in faith, the more we understand the workings of God in us and through us. It’s a never-ending discovery. It’s a process that we are so privileged to be a part of. God wants us to know more and more about himself. He wants us to enjoy Him more and more. He wants us to discover all that He desires to do in us and through us.

God wants these things for us, but He won’t make it happen without our willingness to make it happen. We must do our part and put into practice His promises. We must set our hearts on things above before the things above can become a part of us.

Be honest. How much effort are you putting into applying God’s Word into your life? How close to moral excellence are you? How well do you really know God?

GOD'S PROMISES

 

GOD’S PROMISES

II Pet. 1:4 And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence NLT around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature.

The same Power that saves us and makes us holy gives us rich and wonderful promises to sustain and help us in our journey of faith. All of God’s promises are given to help us make it home to heaven. Some of His promises are applicable to our daily living now and some have to do with what is yet to come.

We must be careful that we don’t claim a promise of God given to a particular people for particular situations and assume they are ours for the claiming today. We can learn much from how God helped people make it in the past, but we can’t just pull verses out of context and make them work for us today unless they are supported by other Scriptures. It is bad theology and wrong doctrine to misapply and interpret Scripture to suit our desires.

God’s promises are always given for a purpose. They help us to escape the evil of the world and the desires that evil stirs up within us so that we don’t sin against God. God’s promises are given so that we will be able to participate in His holiness. They enable us to be victors over sin and not victims of it. They enable us to be lights in the world and not carriers of darkness.

God has not withheld anything from us that helps us to live godly lives. All of His promises are true and helpful for our souls. They are rich and wonderful to us. We ought to not only claim them and use them, we ought to thank the Lord often for them.

God’s promises enable us to stand strong in Christlike faith. They protect us from falling into sin. They inspire us to persevere in faith until we get home. They enable us to be effective witnesses for the glory and honor of Christ in the world. Stand on the promises of God and don’t sit on the premises and you will know victory in Jesus.

MORE AND MORE OF JESUS

 

MORE AND MORE OF JESUS

II Peter 1:3-4 As we know Jesus better, his divine power has given us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness. And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature. NLT

The more we get to know Jesus, the more power from Him we are able to tap into to live godly lives. Make no bones about it, without Jesus living in control of us, we have no chance at all of being godly people. It is His desire to give us all that we need so that we can be filled with His glory and goodness.

We are to receive HIS glory and goodness, not our own. Whatever we or anyone else may think about us, it is meaningless compared to the glory and goodness of Christ. We are to be about Him and not about ourselves. We have nothing to boast about and no goodness within us, apart from Christ.

The more we get to know Jesus, the more comfortable and confident we become with His promises. His promises are rich and wonderful, sufficient to meet our every need on our life's journey. The more we base our living on His promises, the more we are able to live in victory and not succumb to the evil desires warring within us because of our sinful nature.

My prayer for you is that you will desire more and more of Jesus. Satan wants you to be content with less of Jesus than you can have or be satisfied with what you now have of Jesus. He wants you to not pursue Christ and to not stand on His promises. He wants to curb your appetite for Jesus.

"Lord, whet the appetite of all who are reading this devotional today for you. Lord, increase our desire for you. Lord, may your Word come alive for us and cause us to have an increasing desire to know you more. In Your name, I pray. Amen."

KNOW JESUS BETTER

 

KNOW JESUS BETTER

II Peter 1:3 As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness! NLT

The goal of every Christian’s life must be to know Jesus better than we do now. The soul of man will never contain all that Jesus is. We will never exhaust the knowledge we can have of Him. We must always keep our eyes fixed on Him and observe His workings in our lives and amongst man. The more we see and learn, the more we discover there is to see and learn. We stifle our growth when we think we have it all figured out.

The more we learn of Christ, the more we discover of His divine power. We will never be able to tap into all of His power, but what we do discover is that there is more than enough power in Him to enable us to live godly lives. There is no justifiable reason for a believer in Christ to not pursue godly living. There is no excuse for a faith that is not growing and maturing. There is no justification for a life that is not becoming more like Christ. There is no way that a believer in Christ cannot change his ways when he is living in Christ.

Christ has called us to receive His glory and goodness. His intent in saving us is to fill us with himself so that we may be His images on earth. He has so much to accomplish on earth before He returns for us and we are His chosen vessels to do it. We are His hands and feet. It is through us that the Lord will be seen and much good will be done.

The Lord wants us to be the best we can be in Him so that we can be the best witnesses we can be in the world. When we cheat ourselves of the best that Christ offers us, we cheat God of His glory. We are His image-bearers and if others cannot see Christ in His holiness in us, then we can’t really say we are saved. When we confess our sins to Him, He forgives us and purifies us so that all can then see His goodness and glory through us.

UNDER ATTACK

 

UNDER ATTACK

I Peter 5:8-9 Be careful! Watch out for attacks from the Devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour. Take a firm stand against him and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are. NLT

We must always be aware and on guard against the Devil’s attacks. Satan is always on the move, waiting to attack those who let their guard down. Satan knows where we are vulnerable and will seize every opportunity he has to exploit our weaknesses. Wisdom would teach us to be as smart as he is and recognize where we are most vulnerable to his attacks. Knowing where we are most likely to sin gives us a decided advantage over Satan.

Satan also knows when we are most vulnerable. He senses when we become lax in our relationship with the Lord and is ready to pounce on us without warning. He senses when we are going through difficult times and is ready to attack our faith. He senses when we let our guard down and is eager to attack our moral resolve.

We must take whatever measures we can to protect our vulnerabilities. We must take deliberate action to avoid circumstances that would put us in harm’s way. It makes no sense whatsoever to put ourselves in a place where we know we will be tempted to sin. We must learn how to avoid places where we might compromise our faith. No matter how difficult it may be for us to do, we must stay out of harm’s way.

We must take a firm stand against Satan and remain strong in faith. Taking a firm stand means that we will refuse to waver in our resolve to not yield to temptation. No becomes a very important word in our vocabulary. We must stubbornly resist Satan. The best way to do this is to stay grounded in the Word of God and wear out our prayer closet. We are only as strong as the time we spend with the Lord. There is no better protector of the soul than the Word of God in the mind and heart of man.

No matter how much of a spiritual battle you are facing, you are not alone. People everywhere are fighting the same battles you are and are living in victory. There is great comfort and encouragement in knowing that we are not the only ones fighting our battles. Satan wants us to believe that no one understands what we are dealing with. He wants us to believe that our situation is unique. Don’t believe his lies. There is strength in numbers, and you are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who can testify there is indeed victory in Jesus.

GIVE YOUR CARES TO GOD

 

GIVE YOUR CARES TO GOD

I Peter 5:7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you. NLT

The key word in this verse is all. There is a tendency to hang onto some of those things we worry about. We worry because we do not trust the Lord as we should. If something concerns you and you don’t know the outcome, do you take it to the Lord or stew over it? When you take it to the Lord, do you pick it up later and carry it around with you, or do you leave it with the Lord to take care of it? Do you give Him only the big stuff and hang onto the smaller things? Do you try to deal with things on your own rather than let the Lord deal with things?

What it really boils down to is our faith. When we worry over things, we are essentially saying either we don’t believe God will take care of them for us or we question His ability to do it. When we give the Lord control over our lives, it involves control over all those things which concern us. We either trust Him or we don’t. There is no peace for the soul who cannot, or will not, trust the Lord in all things.

If we truly believe in the power of God to take care of us and His love for us, we will trust Him to take care of all the things in life, both the known and unknown things. We either believe that He is sovereign over us and will work all things out for our good or we don’t. To hang onto things and worry about them is living by sight and not faith.

What it really boils down to is this: when we fret and stew over things, we are essentially doubting that God really cares enough for us to take care of those things. We are doubting that He will do what He has said He will do for us. If you tend to be a worrier, ask the Lord to help you trust Him more. Ask Him to help you believe that He has you covered and will work things out for the good and for His glory. Ask Him to take charge of all your worries and cares.