Day Twelve and Thirteen

Scripture Read:
2 Peter 1
1I, Simon Peter, am a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I write this to you whose experience with God is as life-changing as ours, all due to our God's straight dealing and the intervention of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 2Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.

Don't Put It Off
3Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! 4We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you--your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.
5So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, 6alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, 7warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. 8With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. 9Without these qualities you can't see what's right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
10So, friends, confirm God's invitation to you, his choice of you. Don't put it off; do it now. Do this, and you'll have your life on a firm footing, 11the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The One Light in a Dark Time
12Because the stakes are so high, even though you're up-to-date on all this truth and practice it inside and out, I'm not going to let up for a minute in calling you to attention before it. 13This is the post to which I've been assigned--keeping you alert with frequent reminders--and I'm sticking to it as long as I live. 14I know that I'm to die soon; the Master has made that quite clear to me. 15And so I am especially eager that you have all this down in black and white so that after I die, you'll have it for ready reference.
16We weren't, you know, just wishing on a star when we laid the facts out before you regarding the powerful return of our Master, Jesus Christ. We were there for the preview! We saw it with our own eyes: 17Jesus resplendent with light from God the Father as the voice of Majestic Glory spoke: "This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of all my delight." 18We were there on the holy mountain with him. We heard the voice out of heaven with our very own ears.
19We couldn't be more sure of what we saw and heard--God's glory, God's voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You'll do well to keep focusing on it. It's the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts. 20The main thing to keep in mind here is that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private opinion. 21And why? Because it's not something concocted in the human heart. Prophecy resulted when the Holy Spirit prompted men and women to speak God's Word.

2 Peter 2
Lying Religious Leaders
1But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They'll smuggle in destructive divisions, pitting you against each other--biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They've put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction, 2but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can't tell right from wrong.
They give the way of truth a bad name. 3They're only out for themselves. They'll say anything, anything, that sounds good to exploit you. They won't, of course, get by with it. They'll come to a bad end, for God has never just stood by and let that kind of thing go on.
4God didn't let the rebel angels off the hook, but jailed them in hell till Judgment Day. 5Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people--Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them.
6God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left--grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life. 7But that good man Lot, driven nearly out of his mind by the sexual filth and perversity, was rescued. 8Surrounded by moral rot day after day after day, that righteous man was in constant torment.
9So God knows how to rescue the godly from evil trials. And he knows how to hold the feet of the wicked to the fire until Judgment Day.

Predators on the Prowl
10God is especially incensed against these "teachers" who live by lust, addicted to a filthy existence. They despise interference from true authority, preferring to indulge in self-rule. Insolent egotists, they don't hesitate to speak evil against the most splendid of creatures. 11Even angels, their superiors in every way, wouldn't think of throwing their weight around like that, trying to slander others before God.
12These people are nothing but brute beasts, born in the wild, predators on the prowl. In the very act of bringing down others with their ignorant blasphemies, they themselves will be brought down, losers in the end. 13Their evil will boomerang on them. They're so despicable and addicted to pleasure that they indulge in wild parties, carousing in broad daylight. 14They're obsessed with adultery, compulsive in sin, seducing every vulnerable soul they come upon. Their specialty is greed, and they're experts at it. Dead souls!
15They've left the main road and are directionless, having taken the way of Balaam, son of Beor, the prophet who turned profiteer, a connoisseur of evil. 16But Balaam was stopped in his wayward tracks: A dumb animal spoke in a human voice and prevented the prophet's craziness.
17There's nothing to these people--they're dried-up fountains, storm-scattered clouds, headed for a black hole in hell. 18They are loudmouths, full of hot air, but still they're dangerous. Men and women who have recently escaped from a deviant life are most susceptible to their brand of seduction. 19They promise these newcomers freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, for if they're addicted to corruption--and they are--they're enslaved.
20If they've escaped from the slum of sin by experiencing our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then slid back into that same old life again, they're worse than if they had never left. 21Better not to have started out on the straight road to God than to start out and then turn back, repudiating the experience and the holy command. 22They prove the point of the proverbs, "A dog goes back to its own vomit," and, "A scrubbed-up pig heads for the mud."

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What it means to me:
Don't procrastinate in developing the gifts God has given you. Peter lists a bunch of other stuff we can develop to have a stronger relationship with our Master. From faith, to sharing our wisdom to others through teaching, God wants to develop the skills we have been given not just for him, but also to help the body of believers. You will reap what you sow afterall. Look to Jesus in the darkest times and you will find peace. He will help you in times of trouble. I'm not saying he's going to make all your problems disappear, no in fact most of out circumstances are needed in order to shape us more like Christ. What I'm saying is, turn to Christ and he will show you how to succeed. The prophetic words you hear, and you will hear prophetic words, trust me, there an example of the first part of this chapter. Where we should teach others the wisdom we've been given, well the prophetic words you hear, can help other believers, don't be selfish, share what God has laid on your heart with your family. I love 1st and 2nd Peter, because it assures me of what waits in heaven, what I should look out for on earth, and what I should be doing while I wait for my reward.

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Memory Verses:
"So, friends, confirm God's invitation to you, his choice of you. Don't put it off; do it now. Do this, and you'll have your life on a firm footing, "
2 Peter 1:10 (Msg)

"It would be better if they had never known the right way to live than to know it and then reject the holy commandments that were given to them."
2 Peter 2:21 (NLT)