“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ ” John 8:31, 32 Jesus challenged those who would follow him to really believe and if they did that faith would set them free. The crowd reacted with a scoff; we’ve never been enslaved to anyone. But that was a lie. Not only were they enslaved to Rome as a nation, but as a religion they were enslaved to the notion that keeping the law would save them. The truth Jesus was offering them was himself, and that in him they would be free of that burden. In him they would be free of themselves. But people don’t always want to be free. We become accustom to our prisons, our sins, our personal comfort zones, which hold us back from full discipleship.
In II Peter, Peter picks up the challenge to live beyond the confines of our own weakness and short comings. He envisions spiritual growth that comes from the knowledge that God gives us through his son. We need to believe beyond our comfort zone, we need to reach higher than our own stature; we need to live free in Christ. It’s not easy. The world around us, our society, even family and friends may be all too happy to remind us of our past and our screw ups. We are bombarded consistently from media sources and self-help gurus that there is something missing in our simple faith. But the truth is we have all we need in Christ, and it is when we stray from him that we get off course. This is nothing new, even in Peter’s day. Christians faced the challenge of knowing what to believe and what to turn away from.
We will travel through II Peter over the next several weeks looking for the truth we need to hang on to and the teachings we need to avoid, so that we may know the truth and that truth will still set us free.
In II Peter, Peter picks up the challenge to live beyond the confines of our own weakness and short comings. He envisions spiritual growth that comes from the knowledge that God gives us through his son. We need to believe beyond our comfort zone, we need to reach higher than our own stature; we need to live free in Christ. It’s not easy. The world around us, our society, even family and friends may be all too happy to remind us of our past and our screw ups. We are bombarded consistently from media sources and self-help gurus that there is something missing in our simple faith. But the truth is we have all we need in Christ, and it is when we stray from him that we get off course. This is nothing new, even in Peter’s day. Christians faced the challenge of knowing what to believe and what to turn away from.
We will travel through II Peter over the next several weeks looking for the truth we need to hang on to and the teachings we need to avoid, so that we may know the truth and that truth will still set us free.
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