Please Pray For Me

For the past three weeks, I have been under serious Spiritual Warfare.  My computer, marriage, finances, and home were all attacked at the same time.  I apologize for not posting.  Please stand in agreement with me for a financial breakthrough and restoration of my marriage.!  I truly appreciate each and everyone who visits the blog and is encouraged through it.  

I will be posting regularly again starting 7/30/15 . 

Thank-You

Sincerely,

LB Tibbs

Spiritual Growth and Reward

"For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."  2 Peter 1:11

No struggle will be regarded as too severe, no self-denial will be regretted, no toilsome patient victory will be remembered as too trying, but these very things will constitute the exquisite joy and recompense of our eternal home-coming. "For so," he says, "an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." How it lights up this whole passage with a wondrous glory to remember that the Greek word used here to describe our entrance into the kingdom is the very same Greek word used with respect to the "adding " to our faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, godliness, and all the train of heavenly graces. It is not that an abundant entrance merely shall be ministered unto us, but the idea is that a whole chorus of heavenly voices and harmonies will sing us home, and that we shall enter like warriors returning in triumphal procession from a hard-won and glorious victory. It is not merely that a chorus will meet us, but it is the very same chair that we ourselves gathered around us in our earthly conflict. The graces, the virtues, the victories, the triumphs of patience and love that we won and perhaps had quite forgotten will all be waiting yonder like troops of angels, and all shall gather round us and fit into the chorus of joy that shall celebrate our home-coming.

Spiritual Growth and Security

"Beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 3:17

It is not a matter of personal preference whether we shall grow or not. It is a matter of vital necessity, for only thus can we be kept from retrograding. This the apostle hints in our text, "Beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Growth is the remedy for declension and we must ever grow or go backward. So in 1 Peter 2 the same truth is expounded. "If ye do these things ye shall never fall. He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins." That is the very experience of conversion—it fades away and becomes but a dim recollection unless we press on to deeper and higher things.

Indeed, it is necessary for us to grow with an accelerated motion and to make more rapid progress the longer we continue in the Christian life. And so we have a very strong figure even in this passage expressing this thought. The word translated "abound" in our version, in the Greek is "multiply." "If these things be in you and multiply, they shall make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus." Let us not fail to notice the striking antithesis of the "add" in verse 3, and the "multiply" of verse 8. We all know in arithmetic the difference between addition and multiplication. The addition of nine to nine makes eighteen, but the multiplication of nine into nine reverses the figures and makes eighty-one, or nearly five times as much. Everything depends upon the size of the multiplier.  In the spiritual arithmetic the multiplier is God and infinitely higher than the highest digits of human calculation. God simply takes the surrendered heart and unites Himself with it, and the result is as many times greater than itself as God is greater than man.

Spiritual Growth, Responsibility, and Personal Efforts

"Giving all diligence, add to your faith,.." 2 Peter 1:5

While it is true, on the one hand, that all the resources are divinely provided, this does not justify, on our part, a spirit of passive negligence, but summons us all the more to diligence and earnestness in pressing forward in our spiritual career. And so the apostle adds, after this strongly emphasized enumeration of the resources of God's grace, "Giving all diligence, add to your faith," etc. There is to be no languid leaning upon God's grace, no dreamy fatalism, based upon His almighty purpose and power, but a strenuous and unceasing energy on our part in meeting Him with the co-operation of our faith, vigilance and obedience. In fact, the very provisions of God's grace are made, by the apostle, the ground of his exhortation to give earnest attention to this matter. For this very reason, that is, because God has so abundantly provided for us, and is so mightily working in our lives and hearts, and developing us from the power of sin, for this very reason, "Add to your faith," etc.

It is the same thought which Paul has expressed in Philippians, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure." This does not mean that we are to work for our salvation, for we are represented as already saved, otherwise it could not be '' our own salvation." But it is yet in embryo and infancy, an inward principle of life which must be worked out into its full development and maturity in every part of our life, and to this we are "to give all diligence," a diligence, indeed, which often reaches the extent of "fear and trembling," a holy and solemn sense of responsibility to make the most of our spiritual resources and opportunities, because "it is God that worketh in us." It is as if, with the finger of solemn warning raised, He were standing and looking into our eyes and saying, '' God has come. The Almighty has taken this matter in hand. The Eternal Jehovah has undertaken the work, therefore, mind what you do! Let there be no laxness, no negligence, and no failure on your part to meet Him and afford Him the utmost opportunity to fulfill in you all the good pleasure of His will, and the accomplishment of His high and mighty purpose for your soul."

Growth, Grace and Provisions part II

"According as His divine power hath given unto as all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to His glory and virtue. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises." 2 Peter: 1-3

This is the conception of Christian life given in the first chapter of the gospel of John, in that wonderful little expression "grace for grace." That is to say, every grace that we need to exercise already exists in Christ, and may be transferred into our life from Him, as we "receive of His fullness, even grace for grace." On the mount, Moses was called to see and study a model of the Tabernacle. A few weeks later the same Tabernacle might be seen going up piecemeal in the valley below, and, when completed, was an exact replica of the shown to Moses in the mount; for God's explicit command was, "See that thou make all things according to the pattern which was shewed thee in the mount." Corresponding to this is the tabernacle which God is building in each of our lives. It is just as heavenly a structure as the other and far more important, and is meant to be, as it is, the dwelling-place of God. 

It, too, has its model in the mount, and we may see, by the eye of faith, the model of our life, the pattern, the plan of all the graces which we exemplify and the life which is to be built up, worked out, and established. All the materials for our spiritual building are there now, already provided, and the whole design fully wrought out in the purpose of God and the provisions of His grace. But we have to take these resources and materials moment by moment, step by step, and transfer them into our lives. We have not to make the graces ourselves, but take them, wear them, live them, and exhibit them. '' Of His fullness we receive grace for grace," His graces for our graces, His love for our love, His trust for our trust, His power for our strength.

Growth, Grace, and Provisions

"According as His divine power hath given unto as all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to His glory and virtue. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises." 2 Peter: 1-3

God has provided all the resources necessary for a holy and mature Christian life. These resources are provided for us through the graces and virtues of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we are called to receive and share. "He hath called us," not to our glory and virtue, but "to His glory and virtue." It is the same thought which the same Peter expresses in his first epistle, 2:9, "That ye should show forth the excellencies of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." Not, "the praises of Him," which is obviously a bad translation, but "the excellencies." We are to display the excellencies of Jesus to the world, or, as it is here, "The glory and virtue of Jesus." He clothes us with His character and in His garments, and we are to exhibit them to men and to angels. And these provisions of grace are brought within our reach through all "the exceeding great and precious promises," which we may claim and turn into heavenly currency for every needed blessing.

Spiritual Growth

"But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 3:18.

The apostle who has given us our text had already laid down the principles of spiritual growth in the opening chapter of his epistle with great fullness and marvelous clearness and power. There is no single paragraph in the Scriptures which more profoundly unfolds the depths and heights of Christian life than the first eleven verses of the first chapter of 2nd Peter. And the very point we are now referring to is made perfectly plain in these verses. The fifth verse is an injunction to grow in grace, but the preceding verses give us the standpoint from which this growth is to start. It is nothing less than the experience of sanctification. The persons to whom this is addressed are recognized as having already "escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust," and having already "become partakers of the divine nature."

These two facts constitute the whole of sanctification. It is that experience by which we become united to Christ in so divine and personal a sense that we become partakers of His nature, and the very person of Christ, through the Holy Ghost, comes to dwell in our hearts, and by His indwelling becomes to us the substance and support of our spiritual life. The converted soul is a human spirit born from above by the power of the Holy Spirit. The sanctified soul is that human spirit wholly yielded to and wholly possessed and occupied by God's indwelling presence, so as to be able to say, "Not I, but Christ liveth in me." 

The effect of this is to deliver from " the corruption that is in the world through lust." God's indwelling excludes the power of sin and evil desire, which is just what the word lust means. The Greek tenses here leave no room to doubt the question of time and the order of events. This deliverance from corruption precedes the command to grow.

It is very evident, therefore, that we do not grow into sanctification, but grow from sanctification into maturity. This corresponds exactly with the description of the growth of Christ Himself in the opening of the gospel of Luke. "The child grew and waxed strong in spirit filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him." Surely no one will dare to say that He grew into sanctification. He was sanctified from the very first. But He was a sanctified child and grew into manhood. And so still later, in Luke 2:5, it is added that, at the age of twelve years, "Jesus grew in wisdom, and stature, and in favor with God and man."

According to our Faith

"According To Thy Faith be it unto thee" was Christ's great law of healing and blessing in His earthly ministry. This was what He meant when He said '' with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again." All these mighty measures that we have been' holding up are limited by the measures that we bring. God deals out His heavenly treasures to us in these glorious vessels, but each of us must bring our drinking cup and according to its measure we shall be filled. But even the measure of our faith may be a divine one. 

Thank God, the little cup has become enlarged through the grace of Jesus, until from its bottom there flows a pipe into the great ocean, and if that connection is kept open we shall find that our cup is as large as the ocean and never can be drained to the bottom. For He has said to us "Have the faith of God," and surely this is an illimitable measure.

According to the Power that Worketh in Us

"Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, According To the power that worketh in us" (Eph. 3: 20).

"Whereunto I also labor, striving according To the power that worketh in me mightily" (Col.1:29).

"According To the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself" (Phil. 3:21).

In these passages we have God's present working referred to in two directions, namely, in the believer's heart and in the sphere of providence and government. The one must ever keep pace with the other. God does work mightily in the forces around us, but we must allow Him to work within us or all the might of His providence shall be ineffectual for us. "He is able to do exceeding abundantly," but it must be wrought in us. It is"according To the power that worketh in us." All the forces of that mighty engine in the factory yonder are limited and measured by the attachment of the little pulley of each particular machine. It can drive a hundred printing presses if they are in contact, but its power is According To the measure in which each one will receive it and co-operate. God is waiting to work in each of us, indeed He is already working up to the full measure of our yieldedness, and we may have all which we are willing to have inwrought in our own being. The Holy Spirit is always in advance of us, pressing us on to more than we have yet wholly received and we may be very sure that according to the measure of His inward pressure will always be the external workings of God's Almighty hand. Whenever we find the wheels within in motion we may be very sure that the wheels of providence are moving in accord, even to the utmost bounds of the universe and to the utmost limits of God's Almighty power and supreme authority.