Click here to open the Video Devotional
2 Peter 1:5d
Through salvation in Christ Jesus, the apostle Peter tells us that we should add to our faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge. Proverbs 1:7 (NKJV) tells us, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
This knowledge is not just simply knowledge of anything and everything, but the knowledge of Christ Jesus. The apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:13, “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,…”
This is a command to seek knowledge in and of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.
There are 52 verses in the New Testament containing the word “knowledge,” and in the Old Testament there are 120 verses containing the word “knowledge.” Together, the Bible list knowledge 172 times as is listed in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. It is through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord that peace is multiplied to us (2 Peter 1:2), and through His knowledge that called us by glory and virtue (2 Peter 1:3) that we receive the great and precious promises that allows us to be partakers of the divine nature, and escape the corruption that is in this world (2 Peter 1:4). All of these things tie us together in Christ and reveal the qualities that God gives to us through His one and only Son Jesus. We have covered two of these qualities; virtue and knowledge, and we will learn of five more in the next few days.
Dear LORD,
You have given us Your word so that we can learn of You and the way You would have us to be in reflecting Your glory through our lives and back to You. You are teaching us the qualities that should be present in our lives as Christians and how important they are in Christ Jesus. Please help us LORD to apply these qualities in our lives and help us to see that it is not of ourselves that we can reflect these qualities but that they belong to Jesus and it is through our salvation in Him that allows us to experience these things – in Christ. In Jesus name I pray, amen.