Shift to High Gear

Happy Sunday!

2 Corinthians 3:18 says, "We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him."(Message).

Dr. Veronica Winston recalled the first car she owned right after college.  It was a 1979 Toyota Corolla with manual transmission.  She beamed when she spoke of the power she felt shifting the gears, and anticipating shifting to a higher gear.  When she wanted to go further and faster, she knew she had to "shift up".  She knew that she could not stay where she was.  In the same way in life, and in our Christian Walk change is inevitable.  God wants us to advance, to increase, to prosper in every area of our lives.  He has provided His Word as a guide and given us everything we need to live a godly life.(2 Peter 1:3).  God expects us to be passionate about living for Him.  In Revelation 3:15-16, He rebuked the Laodiceans, "You’re not cold, you’re not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit."(Message).

The sermon was entitled, "Time to Shift Into High Gear".  She referenced 2 Peter 1:1-10 as her starting point.  The Apostle Peter used these beginning lines of the letter to encourage believers and remind us of all we have in Christ.  He wrote, "Because you have these blessings, do all you can to add to your life these things: to your faith add goodness; to your goodness add knowledge; to your knowledge add self-control; to your self-control add patience; to your patience add devotion to God; to your devotion add kindness toward your brothers and sisters in Christ, and to this kindness add love."(2 Peter 1:5-7, Easy-to-Read Version).

The Apostle Peter goes on to say, "For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."(2 Peter 1:8, KJV).  Verse 9 gives a vivid description of the opposite.  It was so hard to pick one version to share with you.  The Phillips translation says, "The man whose life fails to exhibit these qualities is short-sighted,", the Easy-to-Read Version says, "But those who don’t grow in these blessings are blind.", the Message says, "Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books."(2 Peter 1:9). OUCH!

What we are experiencing in life right now may be unique, but it is not the first time.  It's not the first time a nation has been divided, not the first time a nation has experienced civil unrest, not the first time a new strain of virus has been discovered, and not the first time we have been given the choice and the chance to trust God. 

Love and prayers, Cynthia