The Divine Nature

2 Peter 1:3-7

These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. (2 Peter 1:4)

MANY PEOPLE COMPARE Christians and non-Christians and don’t always see a difference. Believers have the advantage of experiencing inward transformations, and sometimes we wonder how people who don’t know God function in a world that is discouraging and meaningless without him. Our hope and quality of life seems infinitely better, but our day-to-day actions and behavior don’t always show it. That’s because many of us are not living from our divine nature. Some of us may not even believe it’s possible.

But it is. It seems like an outrageous claim to suggest that once-fallen but now-redeemed human beings can have the divine nature within themselves, but Scripture assures us that we can. It is part of our new birth and the inheritance we have through the Son. It lies latent within us if we do not claim God’s promises and live by faith in him, and it remains useless to us if we don’t know who we really are in him. But for those who have the faith and courage to step into his promises—the reality of who we are, what he has done, and what he has purposed—the divine nature begins to emerge. We really do find ourselves living a different sort of life than we once lived. Life becomes supernatural, wondrous, and new.

For your sake and the sake of those around you, make it a point to embrace everything the New Testament says about you—the fact of your new heart (whether you see it or not), the fact that you are now a saint rather than a sinner (whether you are experiencing that or not), the fact that you have been given all sorts of assurances about prayer and faith and doing the works of God (whether you have stepped into their fullness or not). You are who he says you are, not who you think or feel yourself to be. You are new. And the divine nature is yours to experience.

{Father, may the reality of what you say become infinitely more real to me than what I think, feel, or experience. Give me Kingdom eyes, thoughts, and words. May your divine nature flourish in me. Amen.