Everything You Need (2 Peter 1:3)

2 Peter 1:3 

 

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,

 

Here is a place in Scripture where we see the glory of our salvation and how sufficient it is for life.  For those who have been forgiven of their sins in Jesus Christ, the glorious thing about salvation is that in Christ, God has already granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.  I suggest you highlight this verse in your copy of the Scriptures, because this is a fabulous promise of God.

 

            God’s divine power has granted something to us.  That is to say that God, by his unmatched, unlimited, unfathomable power has given something  to us as a gift.  We did not earn it, because it was granted.  Whatever God has given us is all from him.  It is given by him, for his glory, and out of his love for us.

 

            God tells us here in his word that he has given us, through his power, everything we need for life and godliness.  Everything pertaining to life and godliness tells us that God has given us—past perfect tense, completed action that has effects in the present—everything, every last thing, pertaining to life and godliness.  Do you have all that you need to live a life of godliness?  Yes!  You have everything!  If you are saved, there is nothing lacking in your salvation.  You have everything, absolutely everything, that you need to live a godly life.  You do not need to uncover some spiritual secret power that you do not currently possess.  You do not need the knowledge of any secular expert.  You do not need God to give you something new or something more.  If you are saved, you have from God everything you need pertaining to life and godliness.  It’s yours already, and nothing here indicates that there is any possibility of it going anywhere.

 

            How did God grant us all things that we need to live a godly life?  He did so through the knowledge of Jesus.  AS we get to know Jesus, we learn more and more about living a life that pleases God.  And, let me make it absolutely plain, you get to know Jesus more and more as you spend time with him in his holy word.  God reveals Christ to us in the Scriptures, and so it is the Scriptures that we search to get to know Jesus. 

 

            Notice Jesus’ own words proving that the Scriptures point us to him in his rebuke of the religious leaders in John 5:

 

John 5:39-40, 45-47

 

³⁹You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, ⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

 

⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. ⁴⁶If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. ⁴⁷But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

 

What points to Jesus?  The Scriptures point to Jesus.  To read the Scriptures and miss that they are showing you Jesus is to read the Scriptures with the kind of spiritually blinded eyes of the hypocritical Jewish leaders for whom Jesus had incredibly harsh words.  But when you read the Scriptures with eyes to get to know Christ, you gain more and more knowledge of him; in turn, you will also gain more and more of the everything that you need pertaining to life and godliness.  To look to the Scriptures to know Jesus is to gain all that you need to live a life of godliness in the here and now.