Daily Scripture: 2 Peter 3:17 But you, dear friends, since you know this in advance, guard yourselves; so that you will not be led away by the errors of the wicked and fall from your own secure position. 18 And keep growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah. To him be the glory, both now and forever! Amen. (Complete Jewish Bible).
Reflection Questions: Early in Black Panther, new king T’Challa’s brilliant half-sister Shuri tells him she wants to show him how she’s improved the Black Panther suit. He tries to brush her off, saying his suit works fine. Shuri insists: “Just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.” The apostle Peter wrote something similar about our spiritual life. Grace “works”—but that means it provides a climate of love in which we keep growing, not an excuse for indifference about areas where we need to grow.
- Scholar William Barclay wrote, “The Christian must daily experience the wonder of grace, and daily grow in the gifts which grace can bring; and he must daily enter more and more deeply into the wonder which is in Jesus Christ.”* That’s a lot of “daily’s”! But what nutrition program tells you that eating once a week will make you strong? What exercise program says working out once a week is plenty? How do you choose to “grow in grace” every day? (We hope and pray the GPS helps.)
- “Growing in grace” is not just intellectual. Pastor and scholar Christopher Green wrote, “It is impossible to stand still as a Christian, for we all have an in-built tendency to push Jesus Christ to the back of our minds. The only remedy is to make deliberate, constant and frequent efforts to bring him to the front…. We need to know more about him, to be sure; but we also grow in that knowledge by obeying him, by treating his promises as genuine promises of the Saviour, and his commands as genuine commands of the Lord.”** In what ways are you growing in trusting and obeying the things you know about Jesus?
* William Barclay, Daily Study Bible Series: The Letters of James and Peter (Revised Edition). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1976, pp. 350-351.
** Christopher Green and Dick Lucas, The Message of 2 Peter and Jude. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995, p. 157.
Chris Abel is the Pastor of Students and Young Adults at Resurrection, and he describes himself as a "Pastor/Creative-type/Adventurer." A former atheist turned passionate follower of Christ, he completed his seminary education in Washington, DC. Before coming to Resurrection, Chris was a campus pastor near St. Louis, MO.
“Therefore, dear friends, since you have been warned in advance, be on guard so that you aren’t led off course into the error of sinful people, and lose your own safe position. Instead, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him belongs glory now and forever. Amen.” (2 Peter 3:17-18)
When I was 14 years old I was invited to preach at church during our annual “Youth Sunday.” I had never preached let alone prepared a speech, and was so nervous I plagiarized the entire thing. Every word. Even a joke about Hugh Hefner. I didn’t even know who he was. (But looking back makes sense why I got so many muffled laughs…)When I got to college and took Speech class, I (thankfully) didn’t plagiarize, but was so nervous I bombed my first speech. I stuttered, couldn’t look people in the eye, and felt like I wasn’t worth listening to. Speaking in public was a nightmare.
But everything changed when I discovered one thing:
Conviction.
What no one told me as a young man was that the most powerful thing about speaking is the source from which your energy comes. Your drive. Your “why”: Your conviction about what’s really important in life.
I am not a natural public speaker. But when I found the source of my “why”—my purpose and conviction—I had something worth saying. This was my “why”:
I believe that Jesus has been hijacked by fundamentalist Christians and I want to help every-day people encounter the Jesus that is so much more than condemnation and judgement.
I’m not saying this should be your conviction, but it’s mine. I want to help people who are trapped in bad religion. And finding this moved me from a place of apathy and fear to a place of action and risk.
But sometimes I drift from my conviction. I get lost in the day-to-day stresses of life. I stop reflecting on why I started this path in the first place. I drift from my source of energy.
And when I drift, I lose my conviction. And when I lose my conviction, I lose my gifts. So when I read the passages like today’s scripture, I’m reminded that it takes intentionality and discipline to guard and chase your God-given conviction.
When you hear about leaders who fall from grace, about people who quit something that once gave them life, about servants who lose their heart for others… these are people who have slowly drifted from their source. These things don’t happen overnight. They happen one moment at a time—so subtle that they don’t even realize they’re drifting.
As followers of Christ, we have found our source. And we all are at risk of “losing our safe position.” Being “on guard,” as the author writes, isn’t about being suspicious of people. It’s about being cautious that we stay connected to the source of our power—to our Creator and God.
So, friend, if you’re reading this right now and you find yourself nodding your head, remembering the person and the conviction you once had, the good news is that you can return to your source. It is never far.
God will always be there—even when we drift.
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You might also like:
- Prayer Tip: Hiding in Plain Sight
- “Powerful, loving, and self-controlled,” not timid
- Faith in the real world
- Choosing how to live the one life we get
- Dr. Bravestone: “We need each other, whether we like it or not”
- Or download this week's printable GPS.
©2017 Church of the Resurrection. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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