2 Peter 1:4 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.
God promises us, and has given us, many wonderful promises. In this series of blogposts we are trying to look at, study, understand, believe, receive, and make alive these precious promises from the Lord. The purpose, and the outcome, of God’s giving and our receiving these great promises is that we will be partakers of the divine nature.
God promises to share His life with us. This life, of course, is eternal. We partake of God’s very nature. His life is living in our life. The Spirit of God indwells the believer’s human spirit. That Spirit then influences the soul and then the body. We cannot fully understand this ”partaking.” We don’t usually know what is God and what is me, except when sin and self are involved. Then we know. The Spirit’s movements are so subtle that we rarely sense when He is doing something. But we believe that we are partaking of the life of God working in us.
Sometimes we are able to see the effects afterward. Like Jesus says, ”The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” God’s life mixed with our life is a mystery that must be believed. We believe it happens and we trust the Lord to work.
All people were created in the image of God to reflect His love and life to others and to the world around us. We lost the image in the Fall, but the Lord is in the process of restoring the image of God during our lifetime. And He will finish the job through our death and resurrection.
Meanwhile, trust the promise: God is in you doing good things. In Him you are also escaping the corruption of the world. That means several things, but one thing we escape is the sentence of death that is on the world. We have God’s eternal life.