Tag Archives: escape the corruption

ADD TO YOUR FAITH

Christian Life, ,

ADD TO YOUR FAITH

“…He has given to 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 cause by evil desires. For this very reason make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge…”    2 Peter 1:4, 5

There is a difference between believing and knowing. Hebrews 11:1 says that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”. Hope is not wishful thinking. It’s the picture of the cake in the recipe book that you plan to bake, and faith is the process of following the recipe to reproduce what the picture represents.

To simplify our understanding of the difference between faith and knowledge, let’s use our recipe illustration again. The first time we bake the cake, we have to trust our ingredients and our equipment, e.g., our measuring cups, spoons, scale, beater and our oven. If they are reliable, we believe that the end product will look like what the picture predicts. When we bake the cake the second time, we know that it will be a success because experience tells us that it worked the first time. We have moved from faith to knowing through our personal experience.

There is another step that comes between believing and knowing that Peter urges us to take, called “goodness”. We know that God is good, but what does that mean? Moses begged God to show him His glory (Exodus 33:18) and God responded by saying, “I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (Exodus 33:19). When God passed by Moses He proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” (Exodus 34:6, 7a).

Moses stood in God’s presence, shielded from the visible glory of God but hearing from Him a description of His character. He heard God’s Word and could say, “I know that God is good because I have heard Him proclaim His goodness in my presence.” On the strength of that revelation, Moses could ask God for mercy for His sinning people, and know that God would be merciful because that’s who He is. Moses never doubted God’s mercy again because it was forever written on his heart.

What about us? Since only God is good (Luke 18:19), we cannot add “goodness” to our character. At best, our goodness is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). We can know the goodness of God when we listen to God through His Word and His works. If we look at Jesus, we will see God’s goodness. When we know that God is good, faith will become knowledge and knowledge will fulfil our hope.

7 – ENGAGING THE POWERS OF THE KINGDOM – THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS

Christian Life, ,

7 – ENGAGING THE POWERS OF THE KINGDOM – THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS

God’s grace provides everything we need to “escape the corruption that is in the world caused by evil desires and participate in the divine nature. ” 2 Peter 1:4

Now we begin to explore the facets of grace that we can apply in every circumstance of our daily lives so that we can escape the corruption that is in the world. Forgiveness must surely top our list because we still have an enemy within that will inevitably clash with the people around us.

Protecting and looking after self is at the heart of our old nature. The more self-aware and the less God-aware we are, the more we react in an ungodly way to the things people say and do that offend us.

A “touchy” or “sensitive” person is one who is insecure… in relation to God and to who he/she is. We become defensive and make excuses for our ungodly reactions instead of owning and taking responsibility for what we say and do.

How do we engage the power of forgiveness to live free from grudges and bitterness so that we do not miss the grace of God?

Once again, it’s about being transformed by the renewing of our minds.

  1. The foundation of forgiveness is the awareness of God’s mercy towards us in forgiving our unpayable debt. Any debt of sin another owes us is miniscule compared with the debt we owed God by the lives we lived because of our unbelief.

“All who believe in the Son of God know in their hearts that this testimony is true. Those who don’t believe this are actually calling God a liar because they don’t believe what God has testified about his Son.” 1 John 5:10 NLT

We can forgive because we have been forgiven.

  1. God, in Christ, has already forgiven the sin of the whole world.

“He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.” 1 John 2:2 NLT

When we refuse to forgive, we hold our offender accountable for the debt that has already been paid. It is illegal to demand payment for a debt twice.

  1. Forgiveness is not about how we feel but a choice we make and what we do. When we forgive the sin of another against us, we choose to cancel the debt and set our debtor free.
  1. Forgiveness does not excuse sin; it shows mercy on the basis of what Jesus did for us.
  1. In the end, forgiveness is about showing our debtor compassion when we recognise the truth of what Jesus said on the cross, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”

Who knows the ramifications of sin of one person against another? How would we feel if we were to see how far our sin has gone in damaging the lives of others?

  1. The wonder of forgiveness, then, is not that we must forgive but that we may forgive because God has forgiven us.
  1. Failing to forgive enslaves us as much as it does our debtor and interrupts our fellowship with the Father because it disrupts our unity with Him.

The world demands revenge, and revenge only multiplies the offences. The kingdom says, “Forgive! ” and forgiveness stops the process of sin’s downward slide.

One more thing to consider. The more we live in forgiveness, the more our minds will automatically release others from their debt when they fail until it becomes a settled way of thinking and living. This is what it means to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Can you see how powerful forgiveness is in living out the kingdom’s way of love in the darkness of this world’s ungodly way?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

All Scripture quotations in this series

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.