II Peter 3:9

II Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Go wants everyone to be saved. But He will not force anyone to be saved against their will. He has made the way of salvation through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, but He will wait for someone to decide for themselves to be saved. That is why we must pray for them to be saved. God will answer our prayers and send conviction to the sinner that we are praying for. He is not forcing them; He is answering our prayer!

II Peter 3:8

II Peter 3:8  But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Our verse for today reminds us that time means nothing to God. God is ever present. God is in the future now and God is in the past now. He is outside of time. We have a hard time wrapping our brain around that idea because we are stuck in time. We don’t know the future and we can’t do anything about the past. But God is not limited by anything. Absolutely nothing! Isn’t it great to put our faith in a powerful God who travels all through time?

II Peter 3:5-7

II Peter 3:5-7 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. OK, listen carefully. This is going to sound confusing: There are some people who know that they don’t know everything. But then there are some people who don’t know that they don’t know everything. They think that they know everything. These people are the smarty’s who are mentioned in our verses. They don’t believe in God, nor Noah’s world-wide flood, nor the second coming of Jesus Christ. They will not listen and they will not learn. They are willingly ignorant. They don’t want to know the truth about God. And there is no hope for these people. Someone who knows that they are a sinner are better off than these know-it-all people. Be careful. Don’t be a know-it-all. Listen and learn and be willing to change. You will be blessed if you do.

II Peter 3:3

II Peter 3:3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. A scoffer is someone who makes fun of someone else. And our verse is talking about people who make fun of us, who believe the Bible. But remember, someday they will die and face their Maker. They will face eternal punishment. They will not be mocking anyone then! So what exactly are these mockers saying? What are they making fun of? Our verse says that they are making fun of the second coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus has waited over 2,000years to come back as He has said that He would. So why has He waited so long? Jesus has waited so that everyone could hear the gospel and have a chance to repent. God wants everyone to be saved. He has waited a long time, but He will not wait forever. God is patient, but His patience will run out. We can be saved now and face Jesus Christ as our Savior. Or we can reject Jesus’ love and face Him as our Judge someday. That will be a fearful time, especially for the mockers.

II Peter 2:9

II Peter 2:9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: Our verse reminds us that God knows what He is doing. He knows the heart and he knows what everyone is doing. He knows if our deeds are good and if our deeds are bad. And God remembers everything. Some day He will judge the evil people and He will reward the good people. If you have trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, He will take you to heaven and reward you. If you have not, it is time to trust in Jesus before it is too late.

II Peter 1:20,21

II Peter 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. When we read the Bible it is instructive. That means that the Bible teaches us things. But some verses are hard to understand. They may seem to be saying something that is hard to believe. So what is the best way to understand these hard verses? It is to read other verses on the subject and to let them explain what the hard verses is saying. Our verses say that no verse can be taken by itself. Each verse must be taken as one of many verses. We should ask, "What does the whole Bible say about the topic?" We should not ask, "What does this single verse say?" God spoke through 40 different men to write the Scriptures. And each one of these men agreed with the other men. That is because God is the real author of the Bible. He spoke through the 40 men who actually did the writing. We can trust the Bible. There are no errors in the Bible. If there seems to be a mistake or a disagreement between different verses, we should read them closer and try to understand what they are saying. You can trust what the Bible says.

Luke 6:38

Luke 6:38  Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. Well it is Christmas day. Often we have expectations for what we would like to get for Christmas. Sometimes we get the things; sometimes we don't. And sometimes after we have played with things our gifts for a while, they are not as exciting as we thought they were going to be. But our verse reminds us that it is not what we get but what we give. The last part needs a little explaining. the word mete means that what we give out to others. When we give something to someone, we mete it out to them. So our verse is saying that the way we give to someone else, God will give to us. If we are stingy with others, God will have to be stingy with us. If we are generous with others in our giving, God can be generous with us. Go wants to bless us and give to us. But God wants to teach us, more than just give us stuff. He wants us to be a better person than to have a lot of stuff. But when we grow a generous attitude; when we are giving to others; God will bless us more than we can ever imagine. It's like this: if we use a small scoop to give to others, God must use only a small scoop to give to us. If we use a large shovel to give to others, God can use a large shovel to give to us. If we use a huge dump truck to give to others . . . well you get the picture! God wants to bless us. But because He only wants what is best for us, He is limited in how much He blesses us by how generous we are to others. Let's be generous givers. God will be more than generous to us. And, He will be pleased.