True growth in grace and knowledge: part 1

2 Peter 3:18 “But Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.”

First things first. 

Contrary to popular belief, Grace is NOT (as so many people teach) the “unmerited favor of God.” 

Favor from God that we do not merit (deserve) is called Mercy. It is his Mercy that gives us access to his grace. The two terms are not interchangeable. They work in tandem, for sure. But, definitely not the same thing.

Grace in the Greek means “graciousness, especially the divine influence on the heart and its reflection in the life, including gratitude.”

In other words, it is God moving on and in us and our obedient response to his move. 

Or to quote the best definition as stated in scripture ““For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2‬:‭13‬ ‭KJV‬‬

In other words. Grace is the relationship between us and our Lord. 

If Grace were “unmerited favor,” the 2 Peter 3:18 doesn’t make any sense. While you can grow in knowledge for sure. But how do you grow in “unmerited favor?”

But if Grace is our surrendering to his will through the relationship he allows us to have? That we can grow in. 

God gives us the want to, and the ability to do what he wants us to do- through the relationship he and we enter into when we are born again. 

That we can grow in as we grow closer to him and learn to submit more and more of ourselves to him. 

Now that we’ve handled that little detail, let’s get back to what is true growth in Grace and knowledge of our Lord?

First, everything starts and ends with prayer. Why? Because God is all about relationships and a relationship is all about communication. 

No communication. No relationship. 

My wife and I are legally married. But if we never communicate, we never learn each other’s likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams, wants and desires, will our relationship grow? Will we our relationship even last? 

Not likely. 

But if we talk, discuss, adjust to each other’s likes and dislikes, learn what pleases and displeases, then we grow in our relationship and our marriage is very likely to be a success. 

It’s very similar with the Lord. 

He’s both the head of the body and the husband. Collectively, if we’re biblically born again, we are both the body of Christ and the bride of Christ. 

The head communicates with the body and tells it what to do. The body acts on the orders it’s received. 

The husband, biblically, is the head of the wife (and their children). If he’s following Christ, then she and the kids are to follow him. 

Both of these situations are about communication and proper response. 

Prayer is the majority and the leading edge of that communication in our relationship with Jesus. 

We also have his word (the kjv bible- yes I’m very biased in that). 

Our prayer relationship with God should be the guiding factor in our Bible study. 

Why? 

Because our minds have to be opened to the meaning of the scripture by God himself- the author of the scripture. (Luke 24:44-49) 

Why?

Because scripture is never successfully understood by human reasoning. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

So our prayer life is led by God and that bleeds over into our Bible study. He guides our study into where he wants us to be- at that point in our lives. 

So we grow in Grace through prayer (two way conversation with God) and we grow in knowledge of our Lord by prayerfully being led in our study of his word. He reveals himself, his thoughts, his ways, his likes and dislikes through both prayer and prayer enhanced Bible study. 

Don’t get me wrong.

There are some great Bible study tools out there. I love using Strong’s concordance. I use a dictionary, also. I have a vines Bible dictionary, too. 

But, when the rubber hits the road, the best way to learn scripture is to pray first, pray during, pray after, pray always and let him guide our study. Let him direct our thoughts and interests. 

He’s promised both to always be with us and to lead and guide us into all truth. 

Pray and seek him, his kingdom, his will, and his truth. Let him guide you in, and through every step. 

Open his holy book and let him speak through it. 

God bless y’all till next time. 

Two related word pictures

 

1. Proverbs 18:10

    Psalms 59:16-17

Ancient cities were surrounded by thick, high walls with large, heavy wood and iron gates for protection. But somewhere in the inner part of the city was usually a tall large tower. Sometimes it was the kings castle itself. But for most cities it was a tower. 

It was upon this tower that the watchers were to stand and scan the horizon looking for incoming trouble. If they saw any, they were to blow the trumpet of alarm (the shofar). 

That’s my job as pastor. That’s the husband’s job as the head of the home. That’s also the mother’s job for their children. We’re to occupy the high places in God and scan the horizon for enemy attacks.

When the shofar sounded, the guardians of the city, their military, were to arise out of whatever activity they were engaged in (training, eating, meetings, sleeping, etc) to come together and meet the enemy before they ever made it to the city. 

But if that defense failed, then they retreated within the walls of the city and closed and locked the gates. 

This is why it’s important that we not allow any breaches or gaps in our hedge of protection. We don’t need to leave a single gap for the enemy to take advantage of and be able to enter our walls. If there’s a gap, the enemy will exploit it and someone’s going to die or be taken captive.

If the walls were breached or the gates broken through, then everyone was to retreat to the strong tower. This was stocked with weapons to fight off the enemy, as well as food and other provisions to sustain them until the enemy was fended off and defeated. 

This could be a long process, but you had to stay in the tower and not allow the enemy to breach the tower. Trusting for a miracle of some kind to stop the enemy’s advance.

Got the picture?

Here’s the related picture:

1. the other day I let lady (my daughters dog) into the backyard. Cole (our largest male dog), with hope in his eyes, willingly entered into his cage, wanting me to close him in there and let cowboy (our smaller male dog) outside, too. Then, he wanted me to open his cage and Cole go upstairs. 

I went upstairs to check on the status of cowboy. Seeing he was wanting to go out. I closed the door to the garage, and stepped down, telling Cole to get in his cage. 

I heard no sound. I Saw no movement. I was surprised by this sight when I came around the corner: 

Cole was still in his cage waiting on me to shut him in so I could work the circumstances needed to allow him to go upstairs. 

He had faith that his daddy was going to do what was necessary to get him safely out of the cage and up to the place where he needed to be. 

As I did all this, the Lord spoke clearly to my heart:

“Sometimes the only way out of your predicament is to be willing to be locked in your cage for a time. This allows me to re work the circumstances and move your threat out of your way so that I may then let you out and raise you up to the next level in safety”

David had a calling and promises from God. Yet, he had to hide in caves in the wilderness to stay away from the king who wanted to kill him.

King hezekiah was surrounded by nearly 200,000 soldiers, but he didn’t surrender. He stayed in the city and prayed. God sent one angel that wiped out the entire enemy camp. And the Israeli people were able to go gather the spoils from the camp! 

If we will enter into the secret place(the strong tower), pray and trust Jesus when we feel surrounded, cut off from help, and helpless, God will destroy our enemies, and bless us and get us out of our cage - raising us to a new level!

But We must stay in the strong tower first. 

Isaiah 40:31

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” 

While we’re protected and cared for inside the tower, our battle wounds are being cleaned and bandaged. Our broken bones are being set. Our cuts are being stitched. 

We have time to heal if we don’t fret, fuss, and fight each other because we want out of the cage so badly. 

If we’ll stay in our cage and let him heal us, we will be strengthened. Our faith will be strengthened. Our walk with God will become closer. And he can use that time to train us better for future battles.

“They shall mount up with wings as eagles.” 

When the cage door is finally opened we will have learned a valuable new skill: how to fly in the Holy Ghost. 

If we let God teach us this skill, it brings advantages that we didn’t have before. 

Before we fought our battles on the ground. Face to face. It was tough, dangerous, and brutal. 

But when we learn to fly a) we can see our targets in spiritual warfare from thousands of feet above them. Because we have learned to get into God’s air currents we can be held aloft, untouchable by the enemy. When we see them scampering on the ground, we can use the winds of God to help us pounce our enemy from high above and take them by surprise. It becomes much easier to win the battles.

B) we can avoid many storms by simply avoiding them or flying above them. The storms that used to bog us down or sink our ship, now can have little to no effect on us.

“They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.”

When we willingly stay for our season in the cage, when God lets us out, we won’t grow weary in well doing. We’ll run our race! 

We won’t stop our walk with God tempted to faint at the first sign of trouble. We will finish our course (or path) and successfully arrive at our destination. 

God has plans, Gods made promises. 

Let’s run into the strong tower of Jesus name, willingly. Let’s let God handle the problems outside the tower while he fixes the problems and injuries to his tabernacle. And trains us for the future!

So, what are we waiting for?

This is an invitation to enter into the secret place, the strong tower by God himself. 

He’s inviting us to enter in, lay our burdens at his feet, and get wrapped up in his healing, loving arms. 

The creator of the universe, the king of kings and Lord of lords, is now inviting us in to experience real relationship with him, to feel him fix our inner life, to watch him remove the obstacles, and to see him heal our sickness/disease. 

There’s no better offer on the planet, past, present, or future. 

So what are you waiting for?

Turn off your electronics. Shut your door. Kneel before him and give yourself to him. 

There’s no better time than now and we’re not promised tomorrow.