I love Fernando Ortega's song, "Give Me Jesus." It's perfect for today's post...click play to listen.
Today, I will leave you with my meditation on a scripture that has been sinking down into my heart in recent days. I'll be back on Monday, November 30, to collect this month's points and get ready for another fun month of Small Things!
I was asked to create a piece of artwork around this verse some time ago. And as I chose the background, selected the font and placed the pretty doo-dads, each phrase began to float and slowly settle on me like a warm blanket.
Everything we need.
Everything we need, He has given us.
Through His divine power.
For life and godliness.
He has called us.
Through our knowledge of Him who has called us.
By His own glory and goodness.
With Thanksgiving on Thursday, I've become especially mindful of the incredible gift of Jesus Christ. To be honest, sometimes I get so busy living the Christian life that I forget about the very person my faith is based on. I'm often so wrapped up in trying to do and say the right things, avoid sin and live righteously, that I miss the wonderful truth that is sitting in this little gem of a verse.
You see, the beauty of our faith is that it's not about what WE do for Him. We can't earn, or finagle, or worm our way into righteousness. We can't muster the goodness and character we need to obey His laws or meet His holy commands. It would be a sad state of affairs if our standing with Him depended on our own efforts to be worthy.
It's really all about what HE has done for us.
By his divine power, He has given us everything we need for life and godliness. His grace, in the form of Jesus' sacrifice, is offered to us freely. And when we believe in Him, He fills us with His spirit, giving us the power to live in a new way. It's the same power that created the universe, causes the sun to shine, makes the mountains tremble and the seas roar. It's the power that took that crushed human body, and raised it from the dead to be the King of kings and Lord of lords.
THAT's the divine power that gives us everything we need.
So if that power is there, why don't I seem to have any of it?
The answer is in the next phrase: it's through our knowledge of Him who has called us.
While I'm busy spinning around in my self-made circles, it's so easy to miss His tender voice that calls me to a deeper knowledge of Him. I find myself exhausted and frustrated with my failures...completely overlooking the reality that if I would just stop. Stop and spend time with Him. Stop and know Him, He would hook me up with the divine power I'm lacking.
I love this last phrase: Him who has called us....by His own glory and goodness.
Oh, what would it be like to see God's glory? We have inklings of His glory when we see His handiwork in the heavens, or admire the perfection of a leaf, or feel the softness of a baby's skin, but these are only glimpses that hint at his radiant perfection. And His glory is what draws our soul away from this dusty old world and toward a hope that is beyond us. It's his goodness that melts our decaying flesh and brings us into a holy relationship with Him.
His glory and goodness...to give us life and godliness. We are called by the very person of Jesus, who wants us to know Him and experience life through the power of His spirit.
Will you think about this verse today? Then allow God to do the work in you that you've been trying to do by your own power. He has given you everything you need, now simply walk in it.
POINTS: 40 for printing off and posting up 2 Peter 1:3 where you will see it.
