Day 32 - God Empowers us to Live Fruitful Christian Lives; Lust Stunts our Growth in Christ

Lust causes love for God and others to degrade.

Psalm 104:24-30 –

²⁴ O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. ²⁵ Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. ²⁶ There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. ²⁷ These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. ²⁸ When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. ²⁹ When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. ³⁰ When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

2 Peter 1:3-4 –

³ His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, ⁴ by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

All that is good, true, and beautiful in our lives comes from God, who generously gives His gifts through His Holy Spirit in both creation and redemption. As Psalm 104:24-30 declares, God’s wisdom fills the earth with His creatures, created and sustained by His Spirit. Yet, through the gospel, He has drawn us into deeper relationship with Him, uniting us to Christ by His Spirit through faith. We know God in a way the world does not, for He has called us to be especially associated with His glory and moral excellence. By His Spirit, He has given us His word and enabled us to believe and understand it, by which we know and understand Him.

Peter says that we partake of the Divine Nature, which doesn’t mean theosis, that we are deified, or that we become one with God’s divine nature, either. Rather, we have been united with God’s Divine Nature because we are united to Jesus, and He is God the Son in the flesh. We are united to Him through His human nature, and He is truly God, truly Divine. Jesus is united to His human nature and His Divine Nature. Through Christ, we partake of God’s Divine Nature, by His Holy Spirit.

Through union with Christ, we have been freed from the worldly corruption of our own sinful desire, which once enslaved us to the evil of the world. The Holy Spirit has freed our wills from having to submit to our flesh, and He has given us a new nature that loves God, Christ, His Holy Spirit, and His word and morals. We do not have to walk in the flesh because we have been empowered to walk in the Spirit!

2 Peter 1:5-8 –

⁵ For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, ⁶ and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, ⁷ and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. ⁸ For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because of all the good, truth, and beauty that we have received from God, through Christ, by His Holy Spirit, we are called to reflect His holiness. As 2 Peter 1:5-7 tells us, we must intentionally build upon our faith in Christ, cultivating and adding virtues that make us fruitful in His hand. Empowered by the Spirit, we are to add and increase in,

1) Faith in Christ.

2) Virtue or moral excellence.

3) God’s knowledge through His word.

4) Self-control of our evil impulses or desires.

5) Perseverance in faith and morals.

6) Godliness, reflecting God’s morals back to Him.

7) Brotherly affection.

8) Love for God and others.

If we lack any of these virtues, we must take responsibility and nurture them through worshiping God with other believers in a local church and in our daily lives. For if we have these qualities and we increase in them, we will never falter. Too many godly men and women have fallen! And everyone of them did so because they either lacked these virtues or they did not cultivate them and add them to their faith in Christ. If you want to be an effective Christian in the hand of God, you must possess these qualities and increase in them.