FRIDAY 20th
2 Peter 3:18
‘But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.’
We are still only just a few weeks into the new year, and the instruction that Peter closes this epistle off with is a good instruction which I would also like to be the prayer or desire that I have for all of us in the fellowship of Emmanuel Pentecostal Church and others who read the devotion, who although may not physically attend our fellowship are connected to us by their reading of the devotion, ‘grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’ May 2023 be a year where we will all grow in grace and grow in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are so many ways and so many areas in which our knowledge can grow. We may have a particular liking toward a certain subject, and we love to increase or knowledge on that subject, and this is good, there are lots of areas in which I would love to increase my knowledge about, but above and beyond should be the desire to grow in my knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Philippians 3:10, Paul states a desire that ‘I may know him . . .’ this is the man who encountered Jesus on the Damascus road, the one who had so much revelation of truth that he has given to us so much of our New Testament Scripture, yet he would say that he desired to know Jesus even more! Not one of us can ever say we know Jesus enough, we also cannot say that we have grown in our knowledge of him enough, we all need to know him more and we all need to increase in our knowledge of him more, that is both mentally, spiritually and relationally.
Peter also talks about growing in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember back in his opening words in this letter he says to them ‘May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.’ (2 Peter 1:2) We grow in grace as we allow it to be multiplied in our lives or as grace is multiplied in our lives we will grow in that grace, we allow the grace of God that saved us to continually change us, to continually be administered into our lives to make us more like Christ Jesus every day.
Peter signs off with the words ‘To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.’
I spent some time during one of our Friday Bible studies toward the end of last year looking at a verse from Philippians 1 that reminds us that everything that we have become and what we are should be to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:11) I recently introduced a song in our prayer meeting which has the chorus, ‘All the praise goes to Jesus, all the praise to him alone, all the glory and honour for evermore, all the praise to him alone’, May we go through this year ensuring that our lives are lived in such a way that all the praise, all the glory, all the honour goes to him alone. We live not to please ourselves, we live to please God, to him alone belongs the glory.