A word of life for someone today

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our
Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and
godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by
which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that
through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust. But also for this very
reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to
knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,
to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if
these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in
the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is
shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his
old sins. -2 Peter 1:2-9

It's not knowing what a terrible sinner I am that keeps me from growing mature in Christ; that keeps me from adding to my faith the character of Christ. It's forgetting that I've been cleansed from my sins which keeps me from growing mature in Christ and adding to my faith the character of Christ.

Are you stuck in a circular pattern of the same sins and habits and ways that seem to have always plagued you? You believe in Jesus and you are touched and even weep at how kind and good He is to you, knowing you don't deserve it, knowing what a sinner you are, but you just can't seem to get past these habits and past this manner you've always had.

Listen: You aren't lacking in knowing you're a sinner and in knowing that Jesus is undeservedly good to you. You are lacking in remember and believing that you have been cleansed from those sinful ways. Those ways that you walk in so naturally... Jesus washed them from you with His blood. Meditate on what Christ has done for You, on who HE says you are, not what you know about yourself already. You know you're a sinner. True. You know you have this way about you that you hate and that it's wrong and that Jesus is good to you despite it. True. But you've forgotten that God no longer assesses you according to your nature. You've forgotten that you are not your natural self anymore. You've forgotten that you've been cleansed, made new, forever!

Read Ephesians 1 this week. Just read it over and over and over. Meditate on it. Pray it out. Write it down. Speak it out loud. Remember it. Believe it. I promise you according to God's word in 2 Peter 1, that it's in remembering this truth about who you are in Christ that you will find yourself, "... giving all diligence..." to add to your faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love.

I truly believe this is a word of life for someone today! It is for me. I need to remember!

How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to
Christ. Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us
in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan
has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself
through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure. So we praise God
for the wonderful kindness he has poured out on us because we belong to his
dearly loved Son. He is so rich in kindness that he purchased our freedom
through the blood of his Son, and our sins are forgiven. He has showered his
kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. God's secret plan has
now been revealed to us; it is a plan centered on Christ, designed long ago
according to his good pleasure. And this is his plan: At the right time he
will bring everything together under the authority of Christ-everything in
heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because of Christ, we have received an
inheritance from God, for he chose us from the beginning, and all things
happen just as he decided long ago. God's purpose was that we who were the
first to trust in Christ should praise our glorious God. And now you also
have heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in
Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he
promised long ago. The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us everything
he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. This is just one
more reason for us to praise our glorious God. - Ephesians 1:3-14 NLT