Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Making One’s Calling and Election Sure
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
My Understanding: Peter began this letter by stating to whom this was addressed. He was writing to those who through God’s grace and righteousness have received a precious faith. Ephesians 2:8 says this: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” Even the faith to believe in Jesus Christ is a gift from God which must be received (accepted and appropriated to our lives). We don’t even have the ability to believe on Jesus Christ out of our own willpower. We must be called and chosen by God (our election), and we must receive the gift of grace and faith from God as from him, and not of ourselves. In that way, we have no cause to boast in our salvation, because truly it is a work of God’s grace.
Taking this even one step further, not only is our salvation initiated by God, and our faith to believe is a gift from God that must be received and appropriated to our lives, but God has given us everything we need for life and godliness so that we can live out the Christian life by God’s design and for his purpose for our lives. We are able to live godly lives through our knowledge of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and via understanding of how each person of our triune God is involved in our salvation and in our spiritual growth. God called us to be his through his own glory and goodness, which then is what directs our lives toward godliness. So, it is through God’s glory and goodness that he has given us great and precious promises of salvation, eternity with God, freedom from sin, and freedom to walk in fellowship daily with our Lord. Because of what God did for us, and not because of anything in ourselves, we can participate in his godly character, and we can escape the corruption of the world caused by evil desires. So, in Christ Jesus, we are now free from the control of sin, and we do not have to be mastered by it any longer. Jesus set us free!!
For this reason, i.e. for all the reasons stated above, we should continue in our spiritual growth by appropriating God’s divine character to our lives, i.e. all that he has supplied for us to live godly lives. He has given us everything we need. So, the effort here to add to our faith these characteristic traits is not a human or fleshly effort of ourselves to try to be good, but it is merely taking advantage of what has already been supplied to us by God and it is, in God’s grace and in his strength, applying and appropriating these godly principles to our own lives. The Holy Spirit of God dwells within us. We are God’s temple. The Holy of Holies now dwells within our hearts. So, all of God’s divine character is stored up within us and is available to us if we choose to access it. So, as we grow in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we mature through our knowledge of who God is and our knowledge of what all he has provided for us, what his will is for our lives, and what it means to truly be in Christ, we can appropriate to our lives God’s provisions of goodness, self-control, perseverance, godliness, kindness and love, etc.
If we possess these qualities in increasing measure (through spiritual growth), they will keep us from being ineffective and unproductive in our applied knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And, the way in which we possess these qualities in increasing measure is through knowledge and understanding of God is and of his will for our lives. This means we need to daily be in his word, sitting at his feet, listening to what he says, and then we need to be doing what he teaches us, for that is how we grow. If anyone does not have these qualities (godly qualities), that person is nearsighted, i.e. he has closed his mind and eyes to the truth of the gospel, to the truth of scripture, and to the knowledge of who God is and why we are here and what he has called us to be and to do. He did not call us to his salvation merely to give us a ticket into his heaven one day while we continue life as normal on this earth. No, he called us to a life of godliness and a life that is no longer corrupted by evil desires that wage war against our souls. That person who has closed his mind and eyes to the truth of the gospel has forgotten he has been cleansed from his past sins, which makes him blind. Jesus did not set us free so that we would continue in willful sin.
Lastly, Peter calls on the church, the called of God, to be all the more eager to make their calling and election sure. This is consistent with much teaching throughout the New Testament, which calls us to examine the teachings of scripture on what it means to truly be in Christ Jesus. We are called to obedience and to holiness (via repentance), not to some free ride to heaven absent of any true heart change. If someone is telling you something different from that, they are preaching a false gospel which is giving you a false hope of eternity with God. We cannot pray some prayer at a church altar and think we have our ticket into heaven no matter how we live on this earth. Our calling is to holiness and to godliness. So, that is why we are frequently, throughout the New Testament, called upon to examine our own lives to make sure we are truly in Christ and that we have not believed the lie that says repentance and obedience to Christ are not necessary for salvation, and/or that God is pleased with us no matter what we do once we have prayed that prayer.
Our knowledge of God and our acceptance of his salvation should affect the way we live. If our lives parallel the world instead of becoming more and more like Jesus, then we need to examine our lives before God to see whether or not we are truly in Christ. Our freedom in Christ is not a free license to continue in sin. If we continue in willful sin after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left but only a fearful expectation of judgment, the Bible says. Our knowledge of Christ through salvation should produce holiness and godliness. If this is not true of us, then we need to make certain of our salvation.
The Bible speaks much of trials and testings proving our faith to be genuine faith. There are many false proclamations of faith from those who do not possess true faith at all. Genuiness of faith will be shown through our lives and what we do. This does not mean we will live in sinless perfection, but what it does mean is that we choose to no longer be controlled by sin’s deceitfulness and/or to pattern our lives after the world, and we choose to not give in to willful sin and rebellion, and we choose to walk humbly in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ and to do all that he requires of us, his followers. So, we need to know what he requires, and we learn that through the study and application of his word. If we possess these godly qualities, and we do what God requires of us in thought, word and action, we will have within us the grace and means of God to persevere in our faith and to not fall away from God’s grace. Our reward for our obedience and faith will be that we will be welcomed into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So, if you have not already done so, do the self-examination today, before God in prayer, and ask the Lord to reveal to you if you indeed have the assurance of his salvation, and then make sure of your calling and election by humbly repenting of all known sin and by choosing this day whom you will serve, i.e. by choosing to walk from this point on in obedience to your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and to appropriate to your life all that he has done for you and has given to you in order for you to live a godly and holy life.
Have Thine Own Way, Lord / Adelaide A. Pollard, 1862-1934
George C. Stebbins, 1846-1945 / Tune: ADELAIDE, Meter: 54.54 D
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine!
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o'er my being absolute sway.
Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me!
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