2 things really jumped out at me while glazing over this letter in its entirety this morning.

First would be:

‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1:5-10‬ ‭ESV

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”

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Now, I am not going to spend much time on this today, because this is up for our reading and discussion tomorrow.  But I love these progressions like this, these ‘do a and then b and then c’ type things...Paul does this a few times, and I love that Peter did it too.  But, again, we’ll talk about this one tomorrow for sure!

And the second on that I loved this morning was this:

2 Peter‬ ‭3:8-10‬ ‭ESV

“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (something I have noticed about myself is that patience over time is amazingly difficult...I mean, delayed gratification is a skill that takes time to develop, and one thing reading the Bible REALLY demonstrates, when we read the whole story, is that God has an amazing ability to wait and let things play out and then intervene at the right time...after we’ve thought that 2, 3, or even thousands of the right times have already passed.  Perspective is one of the great gifts of reading God’s Word). The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you (I love that...not ‘slow’, but ‘patient’...allowing things to develop as He plans, over time, in His time), not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” (Being in the financial planning world, one thing I have noticed is how language can sometimes be completely off-base.  Death is one of the common places I see this...people will say that “he died suddenly and unexpectedly”...you know, very seldom is death completely ‘expected’.  Even people who’ve been waiting on death for some time end up ‘suddenly’ passing most of the time.  Usually there is a goodbye that is missed, a final kiss or a farewell that is lost...death is a thief in that way, striking unexpectedly on all but very seldom occasions.  I love the reminder here that God’s next demonstration, God’s coming again, will feel like that.  We should live in expectation and in preparation.  Frankly, I don’t know anyone who’s lived a faithful life who has regretted it...perhaps I don’t see enough people who’ve reached the end of life to have heard someone express that feeling...but I bet that’s a very uncommon position to take, to say that a faithful life was an unfulfilling life.)

Great lessons today...great perspective.