Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 2 Peter 1:4
“We are made “partakers of the divine nature,” receiving and sharing God’s own nature through His promises. Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits. The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God’s provision for us.
We say, however, “Oh, I can’t afford it.” One of the worst lies is wrapped up in that statement. We talk as if our heavenly Father has cut us off without a penny! We think it is a sign of true humility to say at the end of the day, “Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle.”
And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will only obey Him. Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult? Why shouldn’t they be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God’s riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision.
No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges—always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.”
Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest reading entitled “The Habit of Recognizing God’s Provision” for 16 May.
I don’t know about you, bit sometimes I’m guilty of sharing my earthly nature in self-pity rather than sharing God’s nature through His promises. Chambers helped me see today afresh that self-pity creeps in when I think the Father has not supplied what I want or what I feel I need in my timing.
From there, self interest leads to frustration and complaining. Not good. So, how do we avoid this? The Apostle Peter would say to rely on God’s promises and not our own strength or our self-determined timeframe for things to happen in life. When we do this, we find ourselves sharing His nature widely.
So the lesson for those who want to be generous today is to trust in the promises of God. By this way, we testify by experience to the faithfulness of God. As our trust grows, we become people of faith instead of fear and people who share the divine nature rather than fleshly self-pity. God help us.
Today’s my mom’s birthday. Happy birthday Patsy Hoag. I love you. Thanks for sharing the divine nature everywhere you go and raising me to trust in the promises of God to sustain me. May God continue to give you good health and strength to demonstrate God’s faithfulness to His promises for another year!