Make Every Effort – Godly Life Part 3

Scripture: 2 Peter 1:3-11 TPT (Click Link) 5 So devote yourselves to lavishly supplementing your faith with goodness, and to goodness add understanding, 6 and to understanding add the strength of self-control, and to self-control add patient endurance, and to patient endurance add godliness, 7 and to godliness add mercy toward your brothers and sisters, and to mercy toward others add unending love. (2 Peter 1:5-7 TPT) So devote yourselves… Peter starts this important emphasis on How to Live A Godly Life with a challenge to devote ourselves (to give all or a large part of our time, energy, and resources) to the process. The New Living Translation says it like this: In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. (2 Peter 1:5 NLT). In view of all this: 1) That everything we need has already been deposited in us by God’s divine power; 2) That he has given us magnificent promises through which we can experience partnership with the divine nature; 3) That we have escaped the corrupt desires that are of the world and the old nature; In view of all this: devote yourselves, make every effort to fully, whole-heartedly respond in obedient faith to the grace he has lavishly poured into us and upon us and to the promises he has made that this will actually work! I began writing these devotionals for my own transformation and growth twenty years ago. Then I began sharing them with friends who requested them, and eventually sending them daily to a growing list of readers around the world. They grew out of devotion to God and to learning day by day to live a Godly life. Remember, “devotion” means to give a large part of our time, energy, and resources to something. GraceNotes devotionals have always been, and will continue to be, about transformation and growth. Sure, there’s inspiration, comfort, and encouragement, but the focus is always the challenge to devote ourselves, to make every effort to grow into the people God has called us to become, to respond to the promises in obedient faith, to accept the challenge, to embrace the process of “becoming who we really are in Christ.” Let’s open our minds and hearts to the challenge Peter gives us to change and grow and learn to Live a Godly Life! Prayer: Father, Thanks for the grace, the divine power, and the magnificent promises. Thanks for a challenge worthy of our full devotion and our every effort! Lead us step by step as we determine to follow Jesus day by day. For the sake of the Kingdom, Amen!