2 Peter 1:3

2 Peter 1:3

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.

Maybe I am making too much of a simple word but seeing just jumped out at me. The idea that we have to be looking and aware of what God is doing around us. It is so easy to get focused on the everyday that we miss the work that God is performing right in front of us. Another thing many Christians do incorrectly is they fix their eyes on heaven but we are to fix our eyes on Christ. Christ is in the world and we need to interact with Him on a daily level. Peter is assuming that his audience is seeing what God has done and what He is continuing to do. So what has gone done for us that we are supposed to see? His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. It is important that we keep God’s divine power at the forefront of our thoughts because nothing we do outside of Him is truly effective. It is by His power not our own that we have everything we need for life and godliness. We do not have the power to live or to be godly by our own means we must rely on God for the ability to live. I love what the Bible has to say about life because it is so vastly different from what the world thinks about it. For the non-Christian happiness is the ultimate goal of life. If it makes you happy you should pursue it, no one has the right to deny you this pursuit and it should be sought above all else. God has a very different view of what life is and the most quoted verse on His thought has to be John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. But what is this abundant life that Christ talks about? John 15 tells us about abiding in Christ that is where life is. After He talks about this abiding life He does not talk about happiness but joy. John 15:11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. We see that the world strives for happiness while the Christian should strive for joy. Just look at what Christ says about the world reaction to our abundant life in John 15 the world will hate us because they hated Christ. Joy is so much more important and so much greater than happiness. If you are wondering what the difference is between the two it is an emotion versus a state of being. Happiness is the result of circumstance and emotion it can change and fluctuate but joy is a state of being. Joy is not based on our circumstance but it is based on our belief in God. We can mourn and be sad and still full of joy because we have God. God has equipped us to live this life. We do not have to earn this joy he has already given it to us by His divine power. His divine power needs to be brought up again because if joy is not based on circumstance it needs to be based on something stronger, something that does not change and that is through God’s power.
Now that we see that joy is to be our focus and not happiness it helps us to view others as more important than ourselves. Joy can be taken even when we do not get what we want because we rejoice that God does what He wants we can move on to godliness. Do you see how closely these two things tie into each other? How can we be godly if we are not full of His joy? Our joy enables us to love others more than ourselves and to allow the will of God to prevail even when in all honesty it makes us unhappy. Do you think Paul was happy to be stoned and shipwrecked? Do you think he was happy when he was beaten and lashed? We see that he was not happy with the thorn in his flesh but he was full of joy! God works in our lives through hardship so we can have joy that leads us to godliness.
How do we keep this in focus when life circumstances get so hard? Through the true knowledge of Him, we must know His word. We can make up all sorts of crazy theology about God if we ignore the true knowledge of God’s word. This is most evident today in the health and prosperity gospel. The idea that God is supremely concerned with our happiness take the focus off of God and puts it on us. I do not know about you but I have found that God is way more important than I am. I am humbled that He died for me… He died for us! We all know how messed up we are but He loves us. We have our importance not independent of Him but through Him. God’s word is full of godly people suffering. Job was not a happy man he wished he was never born but he was able to have joy in the midst of this suffering because He knew God. It was his friends who did not know God who gave him awful advise! It is so important that we base our faith on God’s word and not our emotions. God loves us and He takes care of us! He called us by His glory and His excellence! It is about Him and in Him we have joy and godliness! This is life!