23Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
24As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.
25This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.
26These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.
27As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.
28Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.
29If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.
1 John 2:23–29 (NASB95)
Yesterday I spent the day out at my parents’. My wife and I are planning a move in the near future, so I’ve begun pulling things out of the attic to try and get ahead of the packing rush. There are several other areas I plan to do this with as well, but the attic is the hardest because it is up one of those drop-down folding set of stairs, and it is Georgia (USA), so it is very hot too. Our church had a service opportunity, and my small group decided to attend that instead of regular Sunday school as well, so I was not in church again.
Yes, I should be in church. I 100% agree. I’m working on that. Rather, God is working on that with me. I’ll be there more regularly, but change is a slow process. Substack has a large number of Christian writers and participants who hail from serious, lettered backgrounds. I’m just a regular guy with problems I need to work on, who writes what the Holy Spirit gives him. I am not as steady or pious as some of those other voices. Sue me.
That’s kind of my point for writing. I’ve told my class that my lessons and this writing are as much for me as for anyone else. I learn so much going through the exercise of putting figurative pen to paper and turning out the things I post on Substack. I see opportunities for personal growth all around me and fail at 99 out of 100 of them. I lament that statistic too.
But, on that one out of a hundred that sticks, that affects my character and moves me a step closer to God, I rejoice. I praise the angels who didn’t give up on me. I take note and look around for the next step.
It has been a long road in coming to the point I am at. It is a longer road still I have ahead of me. Some who know me privately know my struggles. I shall not regale you with them here. They are the same struggles everyone faces who walks through life. I am no different than anyone else, with one very glaring, notable exception. I made God a promise I intend to keep, and He has made me a promise He can only keep.
The promise of God for me isn’t something special. It is the same promise He makes to everyone. It is the same promise He makes to you, too.
Some will read this and suggest I am turning God into a transactional vending machine of blessings. If I put in my promise and my works, God will dispense a neatly wrapped package of blessing candy for me to consume. I am convicted to say that, in my immaturity as a Christian for a very long time, that was how I operated. I’m beginning to move beyond that, and the things that are changing and happening in my life are wondrous. It is what fuels me forward.
Monday Morning with Jesus, after I have missed church, is a difficult piece for me to write. You got a lot about me today. Some will view that as a failing, too. I can’t help that. It is what I was given. At least today, it is short. God bless and Godspeed.
1This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder,
2that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.
3Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,
4and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”
5For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water,
6through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.
7But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.
9The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.
11Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
12looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!
13But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
14Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,
15and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,
16as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness,
18but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
2 Peter 3:1–18 (NASB95)