Word for Wednesday
According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. 2 Peter 1:3
A friend of mine who was involved in plenty of harmful habits declared that he was going to straighten up his life. His plan was to join a local church and to become active in it. He was sure that this would help him to overcome his habits and become a better person. Several months later, I found him back at his old haunts grovelling in his old habits. When I talked to him about it, he declared that joining the church had not helped a bit. ‘I don’t know how you people do it,’ he told me, referring to the Christians I was with. I was not surprised with the failure of his little experiment, because religion never gave anybody any power to resolve any problems. My friend didn’t need a new leaf or a new church; he needed divine life, and the power that comes with it. No church can provide that. Our text declares that everything we have as Christians is because of the divine power of Jesus Christ. And it’s not something that we work for or join up for; it’s a power that is a gift, a part of the great package of our salvation.
The reason my friend lacked any power to change was he lacked life. He was still in his sins, in spiritual death. So were we, until we received divine life. Nobody who is saved has more divine life than any other Christian. Just like with our physical bodies, in which we are either alive or dead, so with our spirits; we are either alive or dead. And Christians are alive! The ‘everlasting life’ of John 3:16 began when we entered into God’s great salvation. That being said, there is a difference in how much each of us appreciate and enter into the good of our eternal life. It’s the same as people who are physically alive. Some appreciate their life and its abilities more than others, and accomplish far more than those who just sit around and watch others perform.
My friend thought that he would become godly by joining a church. He was going to the wrong source. Going to church doesn’t make us godly any more than going to a hospital makes us doctors. That is why so many horrible crimes are committed in the name of religion, even the so-called Christian religion. Consider the butchery and debauchery of Rome through the Middle Ages, and even that church’s sexual predators of our own age. Other religions are no better. They lack the power to live in godliness. But we have that power. We are able to live as God Himself would want us to live. We have the power to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ and to be the witnesses and the workers that He has called us to be.
God has called us to glory and virtue. And He has given us the power to respond to that call. – Jim MacIntosh