The Process

Reading: 2 Peter 1-3; John 1 5 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. 6 Knowing God better leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8 NLT)

Simon the fisherman from Galilee had gone from being an impulsive, emotion-driven “good-old-boy,” to being the rock-solid man of God—Simon Peter—that Jesus had named him to be the first time they met. Peter’s transformation had been a process of living and learning, outspokenness and correction, steps of faith and stumbles of doubt, falling down and getting up again. It was a process! My life as a Christ-follower is also a process. It began with a spiritual new-birth as a child of God. It continues with a day-to-day process of living and learning, disobedience and discipline, mistakes and correction, struggles and victories, disappointment and encouragement, obedience and growth. It’s a process! One term for this life-long process is “discipleship.” Jesus Christ is the master teacher and I am his “disciple”, his student of life, his student for life. He is the journeyman, I am the apprentice. He is the expert, I am the novice. It’s a process! The very best possible outcome of this process is that I will become more like Jesus each day! I will think more like he thinks, love more like he loves, give more like he gives, and know God more like Jesus knows his Father! I’m enrolled for life as a disciple of Jesus. It’s a process! Prayer: Father, Thanks for loving me, redeeming me, making me your child, and calling me to a life of purpose and significance. Thanks for apprenticing me to Master Jesus. Jesus, thanks for your patient teaching, your patient example, for never giving up on me. I embrace your calling. Holy Spirit, thanks for leading me, nudging me, convicting me, and transforming me. I submit to the process. Amen.