The Ancient Future Church

2 Peter 1:1-11

“Supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brother affection with love. . . For whoever lacks these things is blind and shortsighted.”

Hear the ongoing transformation that God intends! Ultimately, transformation (being purged and refined by the power of the Holy Spirit) leads to love, caring for people as much as, if not more than, we care for ourselves.

The greatest obstacles are blindness and shortsightedness. We fail to see in ourselves what we so often and easily see in the other. We compound things when in our blindness we transfer onto others the things that challenge us the most. A man once suggested to me I didn’t have any deep and abiding relationships with others. I have many shortcomings but that is not one of them. The irony here was that there is so much evidence to the contrary but
sadly for this man he couldn’t see it. The sad truth is he didn’t have any deep and abiding relationships and no one other than obligated family would come forward to say otherwise and probably not all of them.

Transformation is usually preceded by some introspection. A newlywed once said marriage had a way of highlighting how selfish one is. Today, for myself, I add try having kids! They are such a joy. Fishing with Dow the other day was such a delight especially as he reeled in his first fish. At that age I cannot imagine anything more rewarding. But that was planned. It is the constant flow of unexpected demands that trample upon my solitude or that desired run that get to me. I am selfish. Lord, leave me not blind to all the ways I am and then make me something else. Let introspection lead to transformation.