2 Peter 1:2 and 3...

This is a devotion I wrote for the worship team this week. For some reason, I think God wants me to put it here, as well.

2 Peter 1:2-3 (New Living Translation):

2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.

3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.


I have come to associate the term “growing in my faith” with “ challenge”. I used to think that I would grow in my faith when I really began studying the Bible. This was a great first step.. followed by a bunch more baby first steps.

I learned that in service I grew a great deal more.. and that actually applying God’s word encouraged real development of my heart. I learned to expect the feeling of being stretched and pulled as I learned about serving God instead of man, and learning that God calls us to joyful service, not “ Oh, Ok I guess I’ll do it”. God changed my attitude from one who looks for reasons or excuses not to serve, to one who said “ Whatever it takes, God.. whatever it takes.” For reasons unknown to myself, but known , I imagine, to my Father, I ended up being “in ministry”. My real growth had begun. And so had my challenges. Yay!

This brings me to why this verse is special to me. I learned recently that even" good southern women" who earnestly love Jesus and want to serve with all their hearts, can run out of manners. I am a person who is usually quick in the “giving grace” department. By nature. It is something I didn't have to try all that hard to do, mostly. This also means it was an area I tended to slack in when I prayed. Why bother asking God for one more thing when it was already sort of easy? ( Now, this makes me laugh at how obnoxious I really can be sometimes! Time to get really REAL here..)


Long story short, God will bring us to the end of ourselves just to teach us how much we need Him. He used some huge challenges, back to back, layered one on top of the other, with no break.. like waves- to bring me to a point where I was out of gas.. and out of grace. One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that while I have limits ( OH boy do I have limits) , God does not. When I feel all used up, He is just getting started!! The more I learn, the less I know.. and He likes it that way because it keeps me seeking Him. As I know Him more, however, I learn to ask for what I need. He promises us grace. He promises us everything we need to live a godly life. He promises MORE and MORE grace and peace, usually as we end up having NONE of that on our own power.

I am thankful tonight for a divine God who knows just what we need , how to give it to us, and how to teach us through challenges - how to call on Him. That is how much He loves us.

The opposite game, God-style..

I just finished reading " Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell. If you have not read this book yet.. please please go get it and read it. He is a "deep thinking kinda guy".. and he refuses the idea of a small powerless "boxed up god" that is only a part of our lives when we are doing church stuff- and the way he looks at the things of God will change your perspective for the better. Just get the book and read it!

For some reason, reading his book has set off a cycle of thoughts in my own mind and heart about my God. People ask all the time " why does this happen, or that happen, if God is all that goodness that you talk about".. you know that line of questioning. I never have a good answer for it. I don't understand it myself. I probably never will understand why some things happen here.. especially when bad things happen to babies or children. That doesn't make any sense to me at all.. and I never know what to say when anyone asks me that stuff. Which brings me to thinking of God in terms of opposites, for some reason. I don't know why, it just did. So, what follows are just some random things that have been brewing in my brain for the past few days. My desire is to think on these things and seek answers from His word, and if it spurs you on to something similar, then , that's great ..

1- When I think of and focus on the cross, Christ, and the work He did - when I keep my mind on things "above", why do I feel more grounded and secure ?

2- The more I learn about God, and His ways and His character, the more questions I have and the less I know.

3- When I am weakest, He is strongest.

4- When I come to the end of myself, that is where I seem to always find Him. Why does it have to be like that??


5- The more of "me" there is in something, the less "Him" there is. I have learned to pray " All of You, and none of me" to remind myself that everything IS about Him.

6-Some of the most sorrowful times in my life I look back on with the most joy, because I see how close the situations brought me to Him.

7- The closer I am with Him, and the more I surrender to His will, the free-er I feel.

8- The more I die to myself, the more alive I am in Christ.


This list goes on and on.. but you get the idea.

One of the things that has come to my mind as I sit here typing, is that this list illustrates how God is "ALL THINGS". He came up with the whole thing, the universe, all that is in it, each of us, our minds, how our logic ( as simple as it is) works, the whole thing is His. He is everything, He is both ends ( and all sides) of every spectrum, which is why these things make sense- even when they don't.


I love thinking of God like this.. so many facets and very colorful and all "lit up" .. I love that we serve a non-boring God!

Blessings,
Cheryl