Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, July 4, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Jesus is both God with us and our perfect example. The debate as to the nature of who Jesus was and is sometimes holds these two ideas in opposition. Either Jesus is God or Jesus is just the perfect human example of how to live in relationship with God. As usual, God’s truth is filled with both/and, rather that either/or juxtapositions, and this little verse from 2 Peter, points it out. Jesus’ divine power—Jesus who is God—gives us everything we need in order to live our lives according to God’s call to the best of our ability. And Jesus showed us how to do this by his example of following God’s call in his human life. Jesus was not some puritanical paragon of perfection—he was a human being who spoke truth to power, stood up to oppression, and made lots and lots and lots of people angry in his relentless pursuit of God’s justice. This is the “goodness” of Jesus, whether or not it is what the writer of 2 Peter intended. And it is this example we are supposed to follow, which gives us “everything needed for life and godliness.”
How is Jesus both a source of strength and an example of call for me?
