The Word: 2 Peter 1: 3 – 4 (KJV)
3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Dig Deeper: Jeremiah 9: 23 -24 (KJV)
23 Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.
Think about it
THE NATURE OF GOD
We understand that we are partakers of Divine Nature. In other words, when we become born again, because of the Holy Spirit living inside our spirit, we share the nature of Christ. We have the capacity to think like he does, we have the ability to act, reason and do things like him. This is very fundamental. Now a chicken does not have the nature of a goat. A chicken can never be a goat irrespective of how much the chicken tries. An unbeliever can never really and truly be like Christ because that original Divine nature was lost when Adam sinned and man’s spirit died. That nature is only restored at new birth. So one of the key things at new birth is that God’s nature or life is imparted unto my spirit. When a baby is born, that baby has certain traits by default in the DNA. That baby will also start to learn to copy or imitate as he / she grows. When we are born again, God’s DNA is automatically imprinted in our spirit man. As we grow older in faith, we learn to follow him, imitate and copy him. So a believer has the capacity to imitate, copy and follow God through the help of the Holy Spirit. An unbeliever will struggle to imitate God (Just like a chicken will struggle to bark like a dog) simply because you need to have that nature in your system to be able to copy exactly.
Secondly, we have been saying discipleship is copying or following or imitating. For you to copy, firstly you must see the traits you want to copy. What are God’s traits? God’s traits are his character or what he does. Now let’s look at some of those traits:
24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.
So God exercises, lovingkindness, judgement and righteousness…….
– Lovingkindness: God is loving and kind, he is patient and merciful, He is forgiving and gracious. If we can’t learn to imitate this, we can’t follow him.
– Judgement: There are times when punitive actions is needed. God does not shy away when there is a need for judgement
– Righteousness: God is always right, holy, clean. We must detach from anything that seems unrighteous.
Remember we have the capacity to follow or imitate God in our spirit. So what do we imitate? These traits of God which have been listed.
Nuggets:
I have the nature of God. I can learn to follow God
Our memory verse for March 2018
Luke 9: 23
23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
Let’s take a few moment to learn our memory verse for this month by heart. It can be memorised in 3 lines:
Line 1: And he said to them all,
Line 2: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself,
Line 3: and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
Once you say it a few times it will stick.
Prayer focus: Our next level prayers:
Lord please help me to follow you.
On Grace:
Masterlife Workbook: The Church is embarking on weeks of discipleship workbook study: Masterlife now on the 2nd workbook: The Disciple’s personality