More Gospel Than a Hundred Sermons

Are we really ready to say that God’s divine power truly gives us everything we need?

That, I think, is the most crucial question of every believer. Can we really transfer every single human right to God, surrendering every notion of creativity to him?

To ask that sort of question, and then to answer it with a yes, requires a degree of faith that hurts.

Here are the first few words, in the second letter of Peter:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3, 4; NIV84)

“Everything” is not a small word, by the way. Nor is it a small concept.

This is a big statement in this little letter. The purpose of Jesus’ power, in your life, is to provide you with everything you need for life and godliness. Boom.

The very life of Jesus, the very power worked in his resurrection, was to enable you to live life without worry. Understand this idea of worry, though. No worry of an unfaithful God. No worry of a failing God. No worry of a life without God. No worry from any stressor or desperate situation.

God cares even for the smallest of your frets, because Jesus even died to rescue you from every single stressful moment.

Seriously. The idea of “corruption of this world,” in verse 3 is the very result of our own broken human natures. All we can produce, apart from God, is a broken world. God became a human, to rescue us from our own filth.

Boom.

There is more gospel in these three verses than in a hundred sermons of your favorite preacher.

And every time I read this passage, I think of this incredible recording by Acappella. Here it is, and it is a beautiful arrangement for a powerful passage.

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Today is day 80. Ten days left.