Focus: 2 Peter 1:5-8 - KJV
5. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6. And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 7. And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. 8. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Philippians 3:1-14
It is fundamental to mankind to have an understanding of whom Jesus Christ is. The problem however is that even those who profess Him as Lord and Savior hardly know Him. They do not know Him even though they assume they do. The Christian life is a journey and not a one-off phenomenon of an “I do”. The reason the teachings about Christ is continuous is to make us know Him. Yes, knowing Him starts with having faith to be saved through grace. Upon being saved, you need to be virtuous and let the world around you acknowledge it. But thereafter, there is need to study to know more and much more. As you grow in knowledge, by the help of the Spirit, you start becoming temperate in all things and patience is found in you as time goes by. To this extent, you start becoming godly and soon start to show brotherly kindness more than ordinary people. Above all, since God is Love and He made you to be love, you also start to exhibit love in the agape fashion that people start to marvel at your being. When these happen to you, then do you know the Christ for all of these things you get from His Spirit. Then you are accounted to have grown to the fullness of the stature of Christ. To achieve it, you need first to shed the past and its seeming gains that are ascribable to the flesh. Like Paul, you must count all those gains worthless to be able to gain Christ.
Beloved, your fruitfulness is attached to the extent you know the Christ. You cannot give what you don’t have. Christ is looking to you, teaming up with others, to help send darkness out of the earth. But for you to be able to bring forth fruits in the similitude of Christ, you need to first know Him intimately. Without that, fruits borne are not going to be like Him as they will only be half baked and therefore never like Him. The prescription is clear: follow the teachings, imbibe the acts and grow thereby.
SOLUTION: It is never too late to start learning more about Christ and live by the knowledge acquired. Set time apart in each day, devoted to this pursuit and before you know it, you will realize how much more you have grown.
Lord, we desire more of you. We perceive we do not know you enough. Yet we want to be filled with the knowledge of you. Like you brought Paul up within a short while that he carried so much of you, please build each of us up in your knowledge in the name of Jesus. By knowing you more, please give us the more, greater power to tread upon serpents and scorpions without getting hurt in Jesus’ name. Let us by this repel darkness from the sphere of the earth in your name in Jesus’ name. And in the end, give us so much great fruits to show in Jesus’ name.