2Pt 1:2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,
4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion and become partakers of the divine nature.
5 For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,
7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 For whoever lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.10 Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall;
2Pe 1:11 so there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. RSV
The articulation, and implication of this passage, implies a development further than simply being born again, in order to have a rich or abundant entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Therefore, if we cannot submit to the biblical proclamation of Kingdom Reward, we then press this matter into a requirement of qualifying works as part of the qualification to be granted entrance into the Kingdom.
Surprisingly: by adding in the items listed, we can be assured a rich entrance into the Eternal Kingdom, apart from understanding any of the complex details of the harvest, overcomers, rapture sequence, or anything else.
Simply focus of caring for the development of this divine nature, by adding in faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, and godliness, brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
Each of these qualities are simply something of the divine nature which we have received by being born again.
If we will simply feed on the living bread, and drink the living water, which is Christ; the divine Seed who is Christ, will develop and then manifest by growth each and everyone of these qualities which have all been placed into this Seed; through the divine process which Christ passed through.
This divine process had its practical beginning with the incarnation; being born of a virgin, as a human baby being developed in Mary’s womb, for nine months, being born, growing up, living a perfect sinless life, being crucified, buried, resurrected, and glorified; to become the Life
giving Spirit to indwell us, to reproduce these qualities of life in us, and to then give us a rich entrance into the eternal Kingdom. It is a simple matter of reproducing according to the seed kind.
If we do not understand this as a matter of life growth, we are then forced into a works based self effort which has failed over and over. Gal 3:21 Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.
We must shift our focus from simply learning details, to nourishing our spirit.
Col 2:19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
1Ti 4:6 If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed.
Eph 4:15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ —
Eph 4:13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
Joh 6:51 “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
Jer 15:16 Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts.
Unfortunately, many believers have never discovered the profound and life changing reality of the living word of God, to change them, empower them, enlighten them, and grant them a vision of God’s eternal purpose, for them, for the church, for the earth, and the new earth, and grand things of the future eternal kingdom on the new earth.
We have sadly been drugged by the fantasy of eternity in heaven in a Mansion, which the Bible does not present . But is the travesty of terrible translation, particularly in Jn ch 14 about mansions.
Saints; if we will come to His word to feed on Him as the life supply, we will have our inner man strengthened by His life and will then grow spiritually. We will begin to realize His moving, revealing and directing us in our spirit, for many things, and bring us into an inner peace, which may have been a rare experience in the past.
The Lord made this truly clear in Jn 4 to the woman at the well. Joh 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
In Jn ch 7 Jesus invites those who had been in a religious feast for a whole week to come to Him and drink. Jn 7:37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
38 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
There is a valid place for analytical study of the scriptures; we see that affirmed regarding the Bereans. Acts 17:10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.
11These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
We are also charged to: 2Ti 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Then, we need to make a change in the location of our operating base of guidance for our lives, redirecting our being from our natural life in our mind, to our regenerated spirit; to be led, and directed, and ministered to in our spirit; to know the mind and will of the Lord. This will take some practice, to change from simply thinking, to hearing the still small voice of Him in our human spirit.
These are practical items which will develop our ability to add in our lives the items, which will grant us an abundant or rich entrance into the eternal kingdom of God.
For more on being led of the Spirit, check out the book entitled As Many as are Led on this site; it’s free to read!
Dave