Bible Text: 2 Peter 1:9-21 | Preacher: Pastor Joe Ricchuiti | Series: “That’s The Gospel Truth”, 2 Peter

Peter writes to encourage these believers to grow in their faith. As they grew in the seven qualities of 1:5-7 they would become fruitful and effective rather than unfruitful and useless spiritually. It’s not enough to just be saved, believers should be growing in their walk with the Lord. Immaturity is a problem for believers addressed many times in the Scriptures (see 1 Cor. 3:1ff and Heb. 5:12ff)
Spiritual immaturity focuses only on the here and now, not on eternity (the future) and forgetting that we’ve been cleansed from sin and that we are new people in Christ, 2 Cor. 5:17 (the past). As one commentator put it, they were shutting their eyes to what God wanted.
Concerning this nearsighted blindness, G Campbell Morgan writes: “This near-sightedness is destructive of a true Christian experience, and therefore makes advance impossible. The reason is that [the believer] has ‘forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.’ That is to say, he has failed to respond to all the enlargement of life and vision which came to him when he received the cleansing of his nature at the very beginning of his Christian life. What a revelation or reminder that is of the greatness of the blessing which comes to the soul when it is accepted, pardoned, justified, cleansed! That wondrous experience always means the relating of the life to the eternal, the opening of the eyes to God.”
If we grow spiritually we will gain assurance of our salvation. Put another way, one writer said: “So a Christian by growing in grace becomes assured of having been called and elected by God.”
Peter wants them to know that if they grow they will not fall, that is be tripped up in their spiritual life. If they heed what he says they will go forward in their spiritual lives not backward.
Based on Peter’s teaching, we should ask: 1) Are we taking advantage of the spiritual resources God has provided to us (His Word, the Holy Spirit, the new nature)?; 2) Are we growing? 3) Do we remember what God has done for us (the forgiveness of sins, restoration and reconciliation to Him)? And 4) Do we have an eternal perspective or are our eyes focused only on this world?