2 Peter 1

"And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires." (‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1:4 ‭NLT‬‬)

Why did God promise us certain things? I believe that God's promises give us hope. Hope that is to be anchored upon our soul and create in us a longing for His return. But more than that, the hope God wants us to anchor by His promises was to guarantee His return and His love for us. Love always hopes, the Scriptures say in 1 Corinthians. Love never gives up and never loses hope. When we lose hope, we lose God's promises in our lives. We start to waver and fall back into our old self and begin again the vicious cycle of life on our own and in our own way. Promises that give us hope need to be anchored upon our soul, so that we can stand firm in times of hardship or trial, knowing that this is not the end, the end is when Jesus returns and we can celebrate with Him in heaven! Promises are to share in God's divine nature through the Spirit of God in our lives! Pastor said today that our being there at today's service was God's divine appointment. We were chosen to be there to hear Him speak into our hearts. It is not by chance or by our choice, it was divinely hand-picked by our Father. Wow! Only God has that divine power and ability to pre-plan everything for us and wait for us to be apart of His plans.

"The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1:8 ‭NLT‬‬)

In verses 5-7, Peter tells us how we ought to respond to God's promises by faith, with generous provisions from moral excellence to knowledge to self-control to patient endurance to godliness to brotherly affection and then love for everyone. Why does Peter say that? When we respond to God and strive for moral excellence, we are telling God, "God, I want to be right with You and not do things I know is clearly wrong." And when we verbalise that commitment, we need knowledge of God's Word about moral excellence. To know according to God, what pleases Him and what doesn't. Scripture shows us what's righteous and what's sinful. Then we need self-control to stay away from the sinful desires of our hearts, the things we are tempted to do. We need to tell ourselves of God's promises and His standards of righteousness. Then comes patient endurance, to persevere through the temptations and remain righteous by God's grace. Godliness is not to be "holy and divine" but it means to be like-God or Christ-like. Christ was a righteous man when He walked the earth. He is God and man. He did bot succumb to the fleshly desires but remained in the promises of the Father to deliver Him on the third day. And God wants us to show brotherly affection and love to everyone by one anothering and serving one another. How? To walk alongside and build each other up and to encourage one another. Why is there a church? Because God created us to be relational beings and people who love to be in a community. Why do we constantly dislike being alone? Why do we sometimes wish we had people to share things with? Have we thought of that? Because we weren't created to be a lone ranger. We were created by the Heavenly Community to be a community🙌🏻 and Peter encourages us through the verse above in verse 8, that if we grow in this manner, it is how we can be productive and use our knowledge of God to impact lives!

"Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts." (‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1:19‬ ‭NLT‬‬)

Peter explains before this verse of how the Father spoke to them of how Jesus is His joy. And hearing the Father's voice, Peter, James and John had great confidence in the message by prophets in the past about Jesus! Prophesy is a lamp shining in darkness and desolation. When there is despair and depression, prophesy is the light that shines in that dark and gloomy place! Prophesy is like the light, but only until the true Light returns to the world. Why did Scripture say that prophesy is used to edify the church? I believe that Paul said that because when we prophesy, we are foretelling what God reveals to us that has not happened, so that we can again, place our hope in the coming of this prophesy! And it takes faith to prophesy what we see. We can only do that by the Spirit that prompts us to.