We've been working through 2 Peter chapter 1.
We've gone as far as verse 8. And then Peter's
going to throw in just a little bit of a downside,
if you will. It says in verse 9, remember in
verse 8, there were steps or additions that should
be taking place in our life. traits. That goes
all the way back to verse 5, and now in verse
8, he said that those traits being added to our
lives will keep us from being ineffective and
unproductive in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And now in verse 9, he says, but, it's
a but, whoever does not have them, whoever does
not have those traits that we went through in
the previous verses, is nearsighted, meaning
you can't see far, and blind, so you can't see
in detail, you can't see correctly, forgetting,
that they have been cleansed from their past
sins. We have been cleansed if we know Jesus
Christ as Lord. The Lord is the person who tells
us what to do, and we do it. And Savior means
the person who paid the price for our sins. We
have been cleansed of our past sins. Having been
cleansed of our past sins, we can't own them
anymore. We can't continue in them now. We have
to let them go. And as we progressively let go
anything, anything that we are that is not God
-honoring, anything that we do that is not God
-honoring, we will... not be nearsighted or blind,
but rather be able to see what God is up to,
see what he's about, see what he's attempting
to do, and we can be part of it. I would encourage
you today to realize that there are those who
are still nearsighted, even people who claim
the name of Christ. They're nearsighted and blind,
forgetting that they have been cleansed from
their past sins and dwelling instead in kind
of the ways of the world and not adding onto
their faith the things that we talked about previously.