2 Peter 1 & New Hope

Lately I have been doing some serious thinking about my spiritual health and I'm very concerned. There are areas in my life that need to be dealt with, but I have not been diligent in doing so. I truly want to grow spiritually and I desperately want get out of this spiritual depleted rut that I'm in but then I just get frustrated again because I don't know what to do or where to start.

It was about 3 months ago when I arrived back from visiting my friends and family in Oklahoma at the beginning of November that I started to fall spiritual (along with emotionally and physically) and it was been a downward spiral ever since. When I was at home, I compromised on my eating habits and I left the door wide open to the devil to come into my life and attack me again. Along with compromising, I got out of the habit of seeking God. Additionally, since I was choosing to sin, my sin was blocking me from having intimacy with Him.

If you want to find a really miserable person who's full a pain, talk to a Christian who has backsliden and is choosing to worship idol that their in bondage to. It's the absolute worst place to be. Especially when you know how good God is and you have felt the true freedom and joy and peace of being in right relationship with Jesus Christ.

It's like I'm reliving my past again. Now that's an ugly picture. The depressed mood and lack of zeal for life along with letting food be in control of me. Lately I have tried and tried to quit overeating and change the things I don't like about myself and grow more godly but in the process, it has just resulted in me being less godly and my eating disorder has gotten more out of control. I struggled so much and I tried so hard and I became very weary and burnt out. I used all my energy on trying to change myself that I shut out seeking the only person that could help me.

I still continued reading and learning about our Heavenly Father, but I stopped seeking to know Him more personally. I neglected intimacy with Him and didn't diligently seek a greater knowledge of Him. I became religious in a way. I was doing all the motions of a religious person like reading spiritual books and going to church when I was able to, and tithing and giving, and everything else, but I was acting more and more like the world. That's scary. But it brought me to another level of brokenness and humbled me more. It's was embarrassing to think that there this 'girl' who claims to be a born again Christian but her ways show otherwise....not a pretty feeling to have. I don't want to be known as a hypocrite. That's an ugly word to me and not a characteristic I want to gain.

God grace is too awesome to put into words and He's always here helping me and answering my prayers. I came to the point where I didn't have a clue what to do. I had done everything that I knew to do and I still wasn't seeing change. The last couple of weeks the messages I have been listening to have been really ministering on my problems. It wasn't till now that I got a revelation and I have new answers and a fresh start. The person who has been really impacting me lately by her messages is Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Wonderful godly lady and her radio broadcast series that she is doing currently, Adding to Your Faith, has brought me fresh hope.

She too last year at this time was going through some spiritual dryness and she knew there were some cracks in her system that needed to be dealt with. This past year she has been memorizing and mediating on the first chapter of 2 Peter.

Peter starts chapter 1 with encouragement, and boy do I need all the encouragement I can get! One of the key things in verses 3 and 4 is the phrase "He has granted to us". 2 Peter 1:3-4 reads, "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, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire."

"God has given to us His power and His promises. He has made us partakers of the divine nature. He has helped us to escape from the corruption that's in the world. This is a picture of what God has done for us and what God has given to us. That is the starting place for any new start in your Christian life.

It's not what you can do for God; it's what God has done for you. It's not what you can give God; it's what God has given to you." -Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Along with the passage giving us encouragement, it also exhortation about the responsibility that is ours in the Christian life. In 2 Peter 1:5-7 (NLT), "So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone." It's a process of responsibility of what we are to be diligently striving for.

2 Peter 1:5-7 also gave me the answer of why is was so hard and frustrating for me to understand why I was having so many problems. I wasn't diligent going through the biblical process of how to achieve spiritual maturity and I was trying to solve my problem by works of the flesh. I drove myself nuts trying to figure out why I was having such a hard time being a godly person, and why I was losing my self-control and why I couldn't honestly love others genuinely when I wanted to with all my heart. Somehow I deceived myself into thinking that if you are a born-again spirit filled Christian, you shouldn't have problems loving others and being godly, or at least I thought it shouldn't be as hard as it has been for me to do.

When I was seeking the Lord diligently, I had self-control. When I stopped really seeking Him, I lost a lot of the self control I had over some issues such as food. The more time that passed while I wasn't seeking Him, the less and less self-control I had.

I always knew it was important to seek the Lord with all your heart (even though I wasn't doing it) but I realized just how important it is and I know that if I don't start doing it again and continue growing spiritually, I will lose my life. I know it going to be hard and I will struggle. But one way or the other, I'm going to be struggling. I'm struggling now but I'm reaping rotten fruit. I might as well be struggling for the benefit of the Holy Kingdom.

I want my life back. I want peace and joy and I want to be on fire for God again. I desperately need to seek the Lord with all my heart and run the race that He has blessed me with. He has given me everything I need. He "has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness". Everything that we need to live the Christian life God has (past tense) granted to us if we are in Christ. All we have to do our part and diligently seek Him and run the race with endurance.

2 Peter 1 (NLT)

Greetings from Peter
1This letter is from Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ.

I am writing to all of you who share the same precious faith we have, faith given to us by Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, who makes us right with God.

2May God bless you with his special favor and wonderful peace as you come to know Jesus, our God and Lord, better and better.

Growing in the Knowledge of God
3As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness! 4And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature.

5So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.

10So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away. 11And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Paying Attention to Scripture
12I plan to keep on reminding you of these things--even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth. 13Yes, I believe I should keep on reminding you of these things as long as I live. 14But the Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that my days here on earth are numbered and I am soon to die. 15So I will work hard to make these things clear to you. I want you to remember them long after I am gone.

16For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming again. We have seen his majestic splendor with our own eyes. 17And he received honor and glory from God the Father when God's glorious, majestic voice called down from heaven, "This is my belovedSon; I am fully pleased with him." 18We ourselves heard the voice when we were there with him on the holy mountain.

19Because of that, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. Pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a light shining in a dark place--until the day Christ appears and his brilliant light shines in your hearts. 20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophets themselves 21or because they wanted to prophesy. It was the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets to speak from God.