“According as His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness…” 2 Peter 1:3
Dear Ones:
How is that which is divine, that which is of God, known and experienced in the life? It is by walking on two feet, one being “surrender” to Christ’s authority, obeying Him, and the other, by decisively placing faith in Christ for the specific needs at hand. The believer who will truly live by these two concepts, surrender and faith, will know Christ, and the power of His resurrection. Practically speaking, how is such a walk to be implemented, embraced, and fully lived?
It is very clear from the accounts in several of the gospels, that when Jesus calls a person to Himself, He calls them to follow Him. He prefaces this command by declaring that the denial of self is first and foremost to following Him. Unless there is the turning away from “self,” in order to turn wholly to Christ, there will be no true following. The call of Christ is one that involves His forgiveness of sins, the forgetting of those sins and the preoccupation with all that is of the “old” life, when not following Him. The denial, or forgetting of oneself, by turning wholly to Him, opens the gate to true fellowship with Christ, the great reward and highest blessing for the believer. To follow Christ is first and foremost to surrender to Him as Lord, submitting to His authority.
The second aspect of “walking,” following Christ, has to do with specific, and whole-hearted faith in Him. Where surrender is applied in responding to the commandments of Christ, specific faith and receiving all from Him, is expressed by living by His promises. In Peter’s second letter, he makes this ever so clear. He first begins with what has been done by Christ, not only in paying completely for our sins, buying us out of the slave-market of sin, but by providing “…all things that pertain to life and godliness,” IN CHRIST. The believer is called to a whole-hearted appropriation of his resources in Christ. There is no resource that he lacks in Christ, as he has been made complete in Him. (Col. 2:10) How then is the believer, according to Peter’s words, to specifically appropriate these fathomless resources? It is by the promises of God, those specific proclamations of divine truth concerning God’s commitment to the believer. Every promise is a specific commitment by God, with the reward that can be known. That which God promises, He will do, or accomplish in the life. It is as the believer trusts God according to the promise, that the Lord responds to faith, to bring the believer into the experience of knowing Christ, and the power of His resurrection.
The greatest, and most clear example, of how the believer is to walk in surrender and faith, is the Lord Jesus Himself. When He took upon Himself human flesh, a “body,” as the writer to the Hebrews puts it, He “walked among us and we beheld His glory.” There was a purpose in that, not only that He should be the Savior of the world by His work on the cross, but that He should be our example, our “way,” in revealing to us how to walk. It is is for this reason that Peter writes concerning the promises of God: “Whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises: THAT BY THESE ye might be partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4) The believer, or Christian, is called to abide in Christ, with Christ dwelling in him, in surrender and faith, deriving all from Him who is his life. Faith in God according to the promises of God makes this a reality. It is as we look at Christ, even “fixing our eyes on Him,” in worship and service, that we understand the “way” and the “means” by which we are to live. Charles Wesley summarizes this relationship with Christ by writing: “Called the full strength of trust to prove, let all my quickened heart be love, Thy spotless life be praise.”
Dear Father, Strengthen us to walk submitted to Your commandments, trusting You fully according to the promises. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad