Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions

Today’s devotion comes from 2 Peter 1:5-11.

 

“⁵ Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, ⁶ and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, ⁷ and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.  ⁸ For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  ⁹ For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.  ¹⁰ Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you;  for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;  ¹¹ for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”  2 Peter 1:5-11.

 

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We should not sit on our laurels, smugly thinking that we are the chosen.  But rather, we should be “applying all diligence” to add these qualities to us.  “Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you;  for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;”  Verse 10.  We are not the “frozen chosen”.

 

 

Let us remember yesterday’s Scripture.  “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;  seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”  2 Peter 1:2-3. 

 

The diligence of which we have a duty to exercise has been granted to us.  We don’t need to cast our eyes down and muster up the diligence on our own.  We can look up to God and pray that He gives us the diligence (the will and perseverance) to add these qualities to us.

 

Moreover, these qualities are not foreign qualities, outside of us.  These qualities pertain to life and godliness, and they have been granted to us.  2 Peter 1:2-3.

 

“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”  Philippians 2:12-13.