Day 31: The provision is in the promise

“Through these  [that's through the glory and goodness of Jesus], God has given us his very great and precious promises.” (2 Peter 1:2-4, NIV)

Everything we need is contained in the promises of God. I say it this way: "The provision is in the promise." That is so important that I want you to fix it in your mind. That explains why, on the one hand, God says He has given us everything and on the other hand, so many Christians are obviously lacking things they need. The answer is they haven't discovered where God's provision is. God's provision is in His promises. Logically therefore, in order to receive your provision, you have to know the promises of God and you have to know how to claim those promises, how to move in and possess the promises of God.

We will deal with that issue more specifically later on, but for now, let us go back to 2 Peter and see what happens in our lives when we realize that God's provision is in His promises. When we find the promises that we need and we begin to claim them and apply them to our lives, there are two amazing results that follow. First of all, Peter says:

“... so that through them [through the promises] you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” (NIV)

There are two results of claiming the promises of God. The first is positive, the second is negative. The positive result is that we participate in the nature of God Himself. That is an amazing statement. If it wasn't right there in the Bible, I don't think I'd ever dare to say it. But it's so explicitly stated there that through appropriating God's promises we become partakers of God's nature. When we act upon God’s promises and appropriate them, when we make them ours in experience, the very nature of God begins to come into us. We become more and more divine.

And that leads us, logically, to the negative result which is "that we escape the corruption in the world through evil desires." Our old fallen nature is essentially corrupt - morally corrupt, spiritually corrupt and physically corrupt. But as the nature of God comes in, it replaces that corruption by the nature of God and the nature of God is, in essence, incorruptible. So a new kind of nature, a new kind of personality, a new kind of life comes into us as we appropriate the promises of God. It is the nature and personality and the life of God Himself coming into us through the promises that He's given us in His Word in the Scripture.

This leads us to a very important and wonderful conclusion. Ultimately, God Himself becomes our inheritance. Ultimately, it's not just things, it's not just blessings, it's not just experiences - but our ultimate inheritance is God Himself! We become partakers of the very nature of God! Beloved, don't stop short of God! Don't stop at just experiences or blessings or gifts. They're all wonderful, but the real purpose of God is that you inherit God Himself through His promises.

In the next devotional, we will begin to deal, in a practical way, with the actual steps we have to take to enter our inheritance.