I was counseling someone who was having problems in his marriage. Truth be told, he was acting obnoxious, and he was verbally abusing his wife. I finally said to him, “Do you respect me? Are you willing to listen to me?” He responded, “Do I respect you? I’ve been coming here nine years. Everything I am I owe to you!”
I put my head in my hands. “Oh no. Don’t tell me that.” God got me off any high horse I was on, but God also ended that counseling session with a breakthrough, and he’s going to use that man and his wife to do something good for him.
Peter the apostle knew something about breakthroughs. He wrote, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3, ESV). When Peter said ‘knowledge’, he meant intimacy not intellectual knowledge. What’s a godly life look like? It’s Christ-likeness, worshiping, thankful, careful, reverent. These things happen through knowing Jesus better! The more we get to know him, the more we will see new ways that we’re not Christlike, and change happens.
Maybe you’re protesting, “You don’t know where I live! You don’t know my mother-in-law. If you knew who I live with or where I work…” Peter said that God has given us everything we need to live a godly life. What you need today, God has it for you. Whether you and I appropriate it is another matter.
You know when people get depressed, sometimes they stop eating. That’s the way some of us are when it comes to the power and grace and equipment God is offering us to live a godly life. Spend time with the Lord! Put your hand up and say, “God, you know what I need today to live a godly life. I don’t want to get distracted. I don’t want to get tempted and pulled away. I want to be like Jesus today.” You think if we pray that way and ask to be like Christ, that God would ever say, “No. I don’t like that request.”? Absolutely not.
When you and I come to God and say, “I want to live a life that pleases you, but I can’t do it on my own.”, God says, “I have everything you need.” Let’s do it in Jesus’ name!
Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.