The Daily Word: Friday, November 27th, 2020
Daniel 4:1-37
2 Peter 1:1-21
Psalm 119:97-112
Proverbs 28:17-18
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Commentary from Pastor Michael White:
For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. – 2 Pet. 1:8
First Scripture lays out a set of requirements to be Christlike: “add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (vv 5-7). We should be virtuous as Christians. We should know who God is through His word! We should have self control. Perseverance. Godliness! We should display brotherly kindness to the people we meet, and love to the people whom God has put in our paths to love.
But what if your life doesn’t look like that? What should you do? If your life isn’t fruitful, the answer is not to try harder! No, no no. This is not about you! Verse 8 diagnoses our condition: we have “forgotten that [we were] cleansed from…old sins.”
The remedy to sin is not to try and fix it on your own! It is to remind yourself that you are forgiven. To remember that you were cleansed from your old sins![1] And the more you remind yourself that you are forgiven, the more you will find yourself walking in holiness without really trying at all. The Holy Spirit will flood your life like never before, and put you back on the path called “God’s best.”
Prayer:
Father, thank You for the Gospel! Thank You that I am forgiven of all my sins: past, present and future. Grace is not a license to sin! But it certainly is a reason to remind myself that the blood of Jesus makes me clean.
© Michael D. White, 2020. All rights reserved.
[1] “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” – Ps. 103:12