2 Peter 1:5-11
Have we all done this? Is it true of you all, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, that you have made your calling and election sure? Is it as certain with you all, that you will go to heaven, as if you were there already? “But,” you say, “how can we do this?” Just by attending to the points brought before us in the previous verses. For if we attend to all these things, then we shall make our calling and election sure. We shall have the assurance in our own soul, that we are the children of God; that we have received the forgiveness of sins, and that our Father loves us; that we are on the road to heaven, and that we have before us the bright and blessed prospect of glory, and are daily getting “nearer home”; and that we shall most assuredly reach heaven at last. In order to have this blessed assurance, let us, my beloved brethren, aim after all these things, that we may make our calling and election sure. There is such a thing as doing this. I should be doing dishonour to my God, and failing in my duty, if I did not know I have made my calling and election sure. If, after all this, my beloved brethren, you are not sure of it, oh, be not satisfied till the matter is settled. And what is the result of all this? The beggarly elements of this world affect me very little, because I have heavenly joy in my heart. I do not care for the money, the rank, or the honour of this evil world, and all its other allurements which attract many. I have something better—better by far. The heavenly things are the best lever to lift your minds out of this world into heaven. Therefore aim after this certainty as to heaven, and it will raise you above the things of this life. It is deeply important, my beloved younger brethren and sisters, to make a good beginning in this way, and to continue thus, and then your joy and assurance will increase more and more. Your path will be as that of the just, which “shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Why should it not be so? We ought to increase. You and I are neither prophets nor apostles, yet our path ought, as that of the just, to “shine more and more unto the perfect day.”
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