Dear Faith Family,
If I am honest, Peter's final charge to his faith family and ours to "be diligent to be found by Jesus without spot or blemish" feels impossible and somewhat intimidating. I don't know about you, but the perfection implied in this imperative makes me uneasy, in no small way, because I am very much aware of my imperfection! As my wife and kids, family and friends, and Gospel Community can attest, I have plenty of spots and blemishes on my record!
Still, there is something in Peter's exhortation that inspires me. Something in his directive compels me to want to live up to what he assumes all those "who have obtained a faith of equal standing...by the righteousness of...Jesus" can be. It's this stirring that overwhelms my intimidation and has kept me pressing deeper into Peter's words and Jesus' life over the years. I believe you and I share a motivation for the faith and life of faith that Peter describes for us.
If that's so, let me encourage you in something I've come to see in Peter's final charge.
The phrase "without spot or blemish" is a reference to the sacrificial system in the ancient world (both Jewish and Greek). The expectation was that only a perfect or "pure" sacrifice, usually an animal, would be acceptable for the offering. The purity had to do with the quality of the animal being offered, but not its behavior. Instead, "To be pure [the animal offered] must be completely itself as possible, with no admixture of something else and with no deficiencies."*
The image is not of an animal that does everything correctly but is of an animal that is truly, wholly, what it is. So, not a sheep that never runs away from the shepherd, for example, but a sheep that is a sheep of singular origin, one breed or species without birth defects.
What Peter is exhorting us to live into then, is not a life without mistakes or missteps, but is a life free from being anything we are not truly. Or, to say it another way, to be only who God says we are, who and for what he has formed us to be and do.
Peter's already affirmed the singular origin of our existence. He said that through the person, power, and promises of Jesus, we've been born anew as partakers in the divine nature. As new creatures, we are without deformity or deficiency since we're escaping from the corruption in the world (1:3-4). And while we clearly have growing up to do in this new life (1:5-8), Peter also said those whose life is in Jesus have already had our former messiness cleaned up (1:9). So what he leaves us with is the encouragement to be completely and only who we truly are in Jesus. How freeing is that?!
To think that God's desire is for you to be you, truly, wholly, completely, fully. You whom he formed and fashioned in delight and in his image. You whom he loves, saves, and reforms in delight and in the likeness of His Son.
Don't get me wrong, behavior matters. After all, living well is what Peter is after, not "sloppy living" (1 Peter 1:17). Yet, he knows that to live a life in action and attitude that is pleasing to God has to be a life that is pure. Not a life without mistakes and missteps, but a life wholly in harmony with who He says we are and what He has made us for. Not a life lived in response to who our culture, family history, the enemy, or even our emotions say that we are, but a life lived in response to the giver of our life. A life that looks a lot like the one Jesus lived.
Because we believe what Peter assumes of us, and for us, we're people who really get to know who our Father is and who he says we are, and what he says we are made for. People who get to know who Jesus is and how he lives. A faith family pursuing an ever-deepening knowledge of God and Jesus through scripture and the Spirit. A knowledge, says Peter, that leads to the abundance of "grace and peace" in and through our lives.
But information about God is only one part. As good as it is for us to know God, we have to learn that God knows us. To "be diligent" in becoming ourselves most completely as possible, we need to be willing to let our Father and Jesus catechize us. Allowing the Spirit to show us the ways we are being someone we are not. One of the most treasured tools throughout church history for knowing ourselves as God knows us is the Prayer of Examen.
In light of where we've come through Peter's letters, and with his final charge rining in our hearts, perhaps this is a spiritual practice we should be putting to use. Will you join me in doing our due diligence to be found by Jesus as completely ourselves as possible? If so, let's start here and work our way together through these practices over the coming month.
May grace and peace be multiplied to you and us, in the ever-deepening knowledge of our Father and of Jesus whom we follow.
Love you, faith family! God bless.
*Jermone Neyrey, 2 Peter, Jude, 248.