Text: 2 Peter 1:1-4
Main Idea: “God has given us heavenly promises for help on earth.”
His precious promises are not just for future blessings, but they also include everything He has given us in and because of Christ. In other words, what He has promised we now have because of Christ. “As many as may be the promises of God in Christ they are yes” (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Today I want to talk about one aspect of partaking of the divine nature.
Experiencing His glory.
“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Our View of Him. A character in a nighttime drama derisively referred to God as “some magic man in the sky.” I have heard people say such things in real life and it hurts because they are talking about my Savior and my Friend. … So I was reminded, it is only grace that opens our eyes to see Jesus for who He truly is: “The living one who was dead and is now alive forevermore” (Revelation 1:18). Subtract His grace from the equation and God would be “some magic man in the sky” to me as well.
We know Jesus as the living one because God spoke: “Let there be light” in our hearts. That opened the door for us to not only go to heaven but to experience His glory here on earth. Here are three ways His glory is expressed…
- Reflecting His character.
(Some of the specifics are in verses 5-7) The more we partake of the divine nature the more we find empowerment to escape the corruption of the world and into the abundance and freedom God offers us in Christ.
- Real Life Experience
He doesn’t close us off to life. He makes everyday life more vividly alive.
Where experience contradicts direct instruction from the Scriptures, we must be wary of the experience, not the word. Everything that is spiritual is not from the Spirit. That being said, there is more to the glory of God than words on the page of this book. God is the living God and His glory is not just conceptual it is also experiential.
We see spiritual parallels in movies. We see highlights in nature that point us to the Creator. We resonate with His praises in music. Not just in Christian songs but sometimes just as clearly in secular music. He serves us familiar truth but makes it fresh.
And yet all these things are like a photograph. They capture His glory in a moment in time, the way we might photograph a friend standing at the Lincoln Memorial. The photograph captures a real moment, but the moment passes and it’s not a substitute for the relationship. The blessing for us is realizing the Lord is with us even when that special moment has passed.
Still, beyond that, He is always greater than our most glorious descriptions of Him. “So to whom will you compare Me, the Incomparable? Can you picture Me without reducing Me?” (Isaiah 46:5 MSG).
Memorialize but do not idolize. Remember God’s expressions but fresh disclosures about Him always lie ahead of us.
Jesus said in John 14:21 – “The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him.” (Amp. Version. “I will make Myself real.”)
I came to Christ because I felt the limitations of the material world and of human relationships. By contrast, in Christ I feel His vastness, that there is so much more of Him than I could ever contain.
- Sharing His perspective.
Josh Hamilton. “You pray, and you just understand that we live in a fallen world and things you try to do good, try to make people happy or put a little joy in their day, something can go wrong. You just trust God.”
Even though our thoughts are not His thoughts, He often shares His perspective with us in proportions we can digest.
And if you “google” Josh Hamilton you will find that he is not what many would consider the model Christian. But the Lord does not stop sharing with us just because we struggle. Thank God!
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