2 Peter 1: 10-20
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren,
give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these
things, ye shall never fall:
11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto
you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ.
12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put
you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be
established in the present truth.
13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in
this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my
tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
15 Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be
able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
16 For we have not followed cunningly devised
fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 For he received from God the Father honour
and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
18 And this voice which came from heaven we
heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy;
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark
place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the
scripture is of any private interpretation.
Some of the most powerful lessons in the scripture are given
by those whom the Spirit is witnessing to that their time on earth is drawing
to a close.
Moses in Deuteronomy
is imploring Israel again and again to abandon all trust in their own strength
and rely fully on YHWH as their maker when He knows soon he will not be with
them.
Yeshua in the Gospel
of John teaching, praying for, and reassuring by promises that when it seems He
has been taken from us, when our expectations of what our life as His disciple
will consist of are so devastated that we are left in sorrow and doubt of our
relationship with Him that our faith will not fail. The result of what we see
as a loss will have the result of our old life will die in Him but by His
breath YHWH will share with us His life making us one. As the scripture says He
gives beauty for ashes and joy for tears.
Pauls warning that when he is gone the church will be
splintered by self-serving apostasy but that we must test the Spirits, know the
scripture and entrust ourselves to YHWH to the end we occupy till our Lord
returns.
It is said that the apostle John in the last days of his life
in saying that when he was gone there would be no one left who had been a firsthand
witness to our Masters life. It is said that over and over He would say little
children love each other.
So it is with Peter that as he tells us that soon He will
put off this earthly life in the same way that Yeshua had told him he would the
thing most important to his heart to leave with us is to experience by our
living the divine nature that is in us by faith in Messiah.
He does not give us a teaching or a warning but as He had
several years before told a lame man “silver and gold have I none but such as I
have give I to thee; in the name of Yeshua rise up and walk.”(Acts3:6) This
event at the beginning of the work of YHWH done in Peter and his second epistle
make for perfect bookends of the life of the prince of the apostles.
For in the detail given of the healing of this man’s
physical body as Peters ministry began we see a perfect comparison for the things
Peter shares with us now to stir our heart as that ministry is ending.
There was a man lame from his mother’s womb…The infirmities
of our heart has been with us from the womb; the nature of Adams self-serving
flesh has been passed through every generation. The nature of the self is seen
in the actions of the most innocent of infants. Has it ever been recorded that
an infant decided to be hungry for a few hours because their mother was exhausted.
This is the separation of the self and separation is death.
An infant cannot sin because sin is to transgress a command
but at the time a child is old enough to hide what they have done sin is present.
This is the condition of every man.
We may come to some understanding of right and wrong or of
desire and empathy but righteousness and compassion escape us like smoke held
in our hand for at our core we are lame from our mother’s womb.
As with this man who was brought to the temple and expected
to receive alms from those who passed him our churches are filled with Christians
who attend church week after week hoping that someone will give them something
that will help them cling to life. The thought of actually being able to walk
in righteousness is far away from their minds they instead have relegated
themselves to endure the failure forgiveness cycle that they see as their fate.
Peter speaks to all such believers and proclaims you have
been made partakers of the divine nature as such rise up by faith in His life
in you and that which was made a weakness in you from the womb will receive strength.
Peter has good reason to assure you that when you let go of
trust in yourself to succeed or fail and instead place all trust in His Spirit
to make you live and live in and through you.
He has seen with His own eyes the glory of YHWH shining
forth from the Lord. It is not a story he has heard or been convinced of but
with his own eyes he saw this thing. When Peter had elevated Yeshua to an
equality with Moses and Elijah; YHWH Himself spoke to him from Heaven and
commanded that Yeshua was His Son and to listen to Him.
Peter then concludes that this utterance from YHWH was not
for those who heard it alone but that the things YHWH speaks is for all men.
