So don’t lose a minute in building on
what you’ve been given, complementing your basic
faith with good character, spiritual
understanding, alert
discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and
generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With 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. 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 1:5 - 9 (TMSG)
Once again
Peter speaks from personal (and painful) experience. The idea of “alert discipline” or
self-control connected with Peter’s early walk with Christ could be compared to
the image of a four year-old in a doctor’s lab coat; he is standing next to the
space shuttle doing a final check before launch. Who would believe that scenario; a pre-K child
entrusted with a gazillion-dollar spaceship and the lives of several
astronauts?
Not!
In the same
way, Peter’s impetuous, act-before-you-think
ways were like a horse without a bridle; the horse may travel wherever the
grass is greener, but its master will never have control.
We all
recognize immaturity’s do-what-I-want, not-as-I-ought syndrome; many of us
recognize it as a painful reality in our daily walk with Christ. Sometimes, even after years of church-going,
Bible studies, prayer meetings and revival tears, discipline is more groggy
than alert!
One problem
with most of us who fail at this point of spiritual fruitfulness is we depend
on the wrong idea of who the “self” is in self-control. One writer put it this way:
…self-effort
always fails in the long run because it may control the body but does not
affect inward desires.[1]
Affecting/changing
the inward desires…ahh…there’s the rub!
Here is an example
from my own “Peter-tendencies”. Out of
my desire to please my Lord I make good food choices in the short run. For a while I can eat healthy foods in
reasonable portion sizes and combine that good practice with exercise. But something always shows up as a “Rocky
Road” temptation. At a weak moment, when
Russell’s self-discipline is napping, two bowls of ice cream will disappear
from the fridge!
I’ve come to
realize that the problem is not that my prayer isn’t answered for God to give
me strength to honor Him with my food choices.
Russell has been depending on Russell’s
ability to hold off the forces of ice cream’s allure; I’ve never
really accepted the reality that such strength is not absolute in Russell. I’m depending on the wrong source for my
strength.
It’s not that
God isn’t willing to answer my prayer; He just won’t say “yes” if I pray for
the wrong thing. God knows it is my
inner desire, my passion for ice cream that needs addressing; when a person
wants ice cream more than pleasing holy God, the problem is with the person’s
“wanter” not God who hasn’t answered the prayers. In short, God is waiting for me to pray to
overcome the inner desire. My prayers
have been that either the fridge would conk-out or Breyers would decide to go
out of business, so I won’t have to face the temptation anymore.
That’s not
facing the reality of life in a fallen, temptation-ridden world.
And that’s
what God wants me to do – alertly
stand with Him to conquer the desires inside me which would lead me into all
sorts of things besides excessive compulsive ice cream consumption.
Fill in the
blanks with your inner flaws
here:
For You, Today…
How’s your alert
discipline shaping up?
Are you good with the way your prayer-life lines-up
with progress in the Kingdom of God?
Inner desires being conquered regularly?
[1]
Life Application Bible Commentary: 1 & 2 Peter & Jude© 1995 by The
Livingstone Corporation. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois.
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