Message: In 2 Peter 1 Peter seems to be talking to Gentile believers because he is confirming them as “those who have obtained a faith of equal privilege with ours through the righteousness of our God and savior Jesus Christ.” This was a big deal to the Jews because they had been the only chosen and privileged ones before. They were consecrated and set apart. Now the Gentiles were invited into the new covenant and as the Jews were learning to live according to the spirit instead of following the laws, the gentiles were learning to live in a new way as well. As Peter continued, he was calling them to a higher standard of living. They hadn’t lived by the rules of the law before and they were learning how to follow the holy spirit into righteousness and circumcision of the heart. He reminded them of all of the benefits and promises that came with their salvation and he commanded them to “supplement their faith” with goodness leading to knowledge, leading to self-control, leading to endurance, leading to godliness, leading to brotherly affection, leading to love. The footnotes in my bible refer to this as the ladder of faith. Our salvation should not be a one-time experience but a continuing growth into all of these things. We are never done growing and in verse 9 Peter says that the person who lacks these things is blind, but those who intentionally follow these things will never stumble. It seems like a logical analogy that if we are watching where we are walking we won’t trip, but if we are not paying attention to where we are walking we will most certainly stumble on something. This whole chapter is about staying alert and focused in our walk so that we continue growing in our walk. There are times it is tempting to glaze over for a bit. We have all had those times where we drove somewhere and suddenly had an awareness that we drove along in auto-pilot mode without really paying attention. It’s a strange feeling and our sudden awareness means we understand that not paying attention is dangerous but so easy to do. In our walk we can fall into auto pilot as well. We are actively doing things and because of that we assume we are growing and changing until we have the “awareness moment”. This chapter challenges me to wake up and make sure I am not drifting into autopilot because I am actively doing things. Even as I read daily and write out my devotions I can become stagnant if I don’t actually do something intentional with these challenges. I need to be mindful of them all day long and actually challenge myself. Not just say that I will. Challenge accepted!!
