2 PETER (Letter 61, Larry Crabb’s 66 Love Letters)
I Know How to Rescue My Children From Their Worst Problem
We now share His nature. We have within us the power necessary to resist every natural impulse that stands in the way of loving others as He loves us. Neither fear, failure, nor temptation is stronger than the divine power available to us that can keep us walking the narrow road to life.
We cannot escape from the desire for our own happiness and well-being. And he doesn’t want us to. But we can escape from the demand to arrange for our own happiness and well-being. We can do so by trusting Him with our life and devoting ourselves to revealing His nature to others by how we relate.
Many of God’s followers are nearsighted and blind. They see only the possibility of socializing their self-centeredness into what they mistakenly regard as an acceptable way for His followers to live. He calls them and us to crucify our old way of relating, not to disguise it beneath a friendly Christian looking veneer. But false teachers come along with stories they have made up that pervert His story into an opportunity to use Him for the satisfaction of their self-obsessed desires. If we buy into their lives, we will relate out of self-interest and see nothing wrong with it. We won’t even realize we’re relating from that energy. We will recognize no conflict between relating in a way that gains personal advantage and living as a follower of His Son.
A second error in thinking leads to a greater concern for making this life work well than for personal holiness.
If we listen to such false teaching we will not be rescued from our worst problem of selfish relating into selfless relating.
2 PETER: From Ray Stedman
Click here for entire Bible Summary from Ray Stedman
2 PETER: In The Face of Falsehood
There is a considerable difference between Peter’s two letters. The first one was full of rejoicing hope in the face of suffering. But the theme of this second letter is that of faithful truth in the face of falsehood; how to detect error, how to live in the midst of deceit, how to distinguish between right and wrong, when wrong is subtly alluring and deceptive.
First, let me give you just a brief outline of the letter.
In the first chapter, the apostle is giving his readers a word of exhortation on what the Christian life is all about.
In the second chapter, he gives a word of warning on how to recognize and handle false teachers.
And in the third chapter, he gives us a word of certainty about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the facts
that underlie our faith.
And then he draws a conclusion.
The Lord Jesus had said to Peter that there would come a time when men would bind his hands and lead him where he did not desire to go. Peter understood this to mean that he was to suffer and die as our Lord died, on a cross. And tradition tells us that Peter was indeed crucified, that he was so humbled by the fact that he was counted worthy to die the same kind of a death that the Lord Jesus did, that he begged his captors to crucify him upside down.
He is not in this letter trying to encourage them with how to rejoice in the face of suffering, but rather he is trying to help them to be true in the face of falsehood.
We would all be caught inextricably in a mesh of lies and deceit without the truth from God. Corruption is in the world because of passion. Three passions are at the root of all human evil:
· Lust, which means sexual passion, in a wrong sense – which destroys the body;
· Greed, which is materialism;
· Ambition, the pride of spirit that seeks popularity and fame and the praise of man.
Those are the three things which the truth of God particularly delivers us from as we understand and obey it.
Do you want a recipe for success as a Christian? Faith and obedience. The knowledge of the promises of God and the application of them in specific situations – these will keep you from being unfruitful and ineffective.
Two things – eyewitnesses, and prophetic words – underlie our faith.
to be completed
2 PETER – David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)
Key thought: While awaiting our Lord’s return, we must stand on His great and precious promises, which provide all we need for life and godliness.
Key Verse: Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble. 2 Peter 1:10
Key Action: Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, wihout spot and blameless 2 Peter 3:14