Simon Peter, a bond servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.
To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of God, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.:
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God, and Jesus our Lord;
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.2 Peter 1:1-3 NASB
I love new testament greetings! They’re so packed with beautiful blessings and bubbling over with the truth of life with Christ! Let’s break this one down a smidge.
- Faith is something we receive from God. Read more about that here and here.
- Faith is granted to us by Jesus’s righteousness, not our own effort (except the receiving part). You can read about that here.
- True knowledge of God gives of everything we need for life and godliness! This will be our jumping off place for today’s post.
What exactly is the knowledge of God?
As a believer in Jesus, a follower of God, some of my most pressing goals should be true life and godliness, wouldn’t you say? We accepted Jesus because we wanted to be free from the burden and obligation of sin and because we wanted to be part of HIS family, and just like if you join any family, you learn about the family customs. The difference, of course, being that we don’t just become part of the family of God, we experience a heart change, the endwelling of God’s Holy Spirit…we actually BECOME part of His family.
But we’re still walking around in human bodies, right? We have psychologies that may have been trained badly, bodies that want things that don’t pertain to life and godliness, so how do we enter into our new family nature? Through the “true knowledge of God.”
What does that mean though?
Do you have anyone in your life who you feel like you truly know? Maybe it’s your husband or your wife, your brother or sister, your parent or child. Whatever the answer is, it is undoubtedly someone with whom you have spent a LOT of time, right? You got to know this person day in and day out. Some days revealed new elements of your loved one’s personality, probably many days. We are all multi-faceted creatures, and getting to really know someone truly takes time.
If our loved ones can be considered multi-faceted, then consider how much more complex and beautiful a personality our Father God has. Each of us may feel we know God, but the more time we spend with Him, the more we will get to know the depths of Him. Ephesians 4:20-24 describes how we “learn Christ.”
20 But you did not learn Christ in this way, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old [q]self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new [r]self, which [s]in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
“Learning Christ” comes from the assistance of the Holy Spirit.
As you make faith welcome in your heart, take hold of life and godliness by spending time getting to truly know our God. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you come to greater and greater true knowledge of the God who loves us so deeply, and you will see that life and godliness grow in you.