Simply Angie
We have finally reached it. For the past several weeks, we’ve been studying the precious treasure of our faith described in 2 Peter 1, and how we can access the divine nature that will enable our faith to grow and thrive. We started with the seed of Faith, then cultivated Virtue, Knowledge, Temperance, Patience, and Godliness, and just last week, we nurtured the raw, family-level sacrifice of Brotherly Kindness. Now, Peter brings us to the very pinnacle of Christian growth. The ultimate level of spiritual maturity.
This is the big one. This is the real deal. While every other layer of spiritual growth has its own unique challenges, charity is the hardest of all. In fact, if we are talking about genuine, unconditional love like God loves, it is entirely impossible in our sinful flesh. It can only happen when it is Christ’s power and His love flowing through us. Over the course of my life, I’ve often heard people say, “Oh, I don’t take charity,” or “I don’t want your charity.” Somewhere along the way, our culture turned this magnificent word into something negative. We made it synonymous with being too poor, or receiving something humiliating that we didn’t earn or deserve. But when you think about it, that is exactly what biblical charity is! None of us deserved the sweeping, monumental love of God, but He gave it to us anyway. Far from being a negative, charity is the most beautiful word in the language of heaven. I want all the charity I can get from God, and I want to be able to give all the charity I can possibly give to others. Moving Beyond the Family Circle
Last week, we talked about philadelphia, brotherly kindness, which is the love inside the family of God. We know how families work. You might bicker and get on each other’s nerves under your own roof, but the second an outsider tries to attack someone in your family, you instantly drop your grievances and stand up to defend them. But charity (agape) goes so far beyond that protective family circle. Charity is the next level. It is directed toward the stranger, the unbeliever, the ungodly, and most challenging of all, our enemies. Charity means looking at every single person through the eyes of God. That doesn't mean overlooking sin. It means never forgetting that every soul we meet was created in God's image and is someone Christ was willing to die to save. I will confess to you that doing this is incredibly hard. Sometimes when I look at the sheer wickedness, cruelty, and evil happening in our world today, looking through “God’s eyes” makes my spirit want to call down His immediate wrath and justice! It is vexing to tolerate the brokenness around us. But that is exactly when we have to resolve to trust in God’s Sovereign knowledge and timing. My husband and I will often sit down and talk about the Lord, trying to understand His ways. Don’s mind likes to understand exactly how everything works; he wants to fully see and know God’s mind on every matter. He feels frustrated when some things seem inexplicable. I want to understand, too, but I find it a bit easier to just say, “Well, I don’t get that part, but I’m sure the Lord will show me when I get to heaven.” There are so many things we cannot comprehend down here. Why does God allow certain things to happen? Why doesn’t He jump in and rescue a poor situation over here, or why does one person seem to get away with wrong while another doesn’t? I don’t know. But charity requires me to trust His character. He is not a two-dimensional caricature. He is the God of absolute love, but His wrath against sin is actually part of that love, because true love demands justice. We must trust the sides of Him we cannot see because of the goodness we can see. Putting on the Bonds of Maturity
Because this love does not come naturally to us, the Apostle Paul tells us it is something we have to actively, consciously choose to do.
That word perfectness simply means complete spiritual maturity, but look closely at that word bond. In the original language, it refers to a ligament or a strong cord that binds a bundle tightly together. I used to think of putting on charity like slipping on a beautiful coat, but it is actually much more powerful than that. Charity is the unbreakable cord that wraps around every single one of those earlier attributes, binding them together into a complete, mature, and unified whole. It is what holds our entire spiritual life together. The Holy Spirit lives inside you, constantly speaking to your heart, prompting you, convicting you, and guiding your steps. Only by walking closely with Him can we stay securely bound in unity with Christ. What does this cord actually look like when we wear it? Paul gives us one of the clearest pictures of biblical charity in all of Scripture. He describes charity almost as if it were a person rather than an abstract quality.
I could write a whole series of letters on just those few verses! Maybe one day soon I will.
In this quick summary, notice that every phrase reveals another facet of Christ-like love:
Did you see it? Every single quality we’ve spent the past several weeks adding to our faith... Paul goes on to state that we can speak with the tongues of angels, have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries, and give all our goods to feed the poor, but if we do not have charity, we are nothing but a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. All of our outward religious actions are completely empty if they aren’t fueled by this level of spiritual maturity. The Heart of It All
If you want to know what this looks like in practical terms, when the rubber meets the road, we have to look at Jesus’ radical instructions in the Sermon on the Mount.
Right there at the end of verse 45 is what I call the “heart of the matter.” That is where the real power is. Why do we love the people who hate us and misuse us? “That ye may be the children of your father.” In other words, so that people can look at your life and instantly recognize whose family you belong to. Over my lifetime, I have received a few beautiful compliments that I treasure deeply. One of the greatest things anyone has ever said to me—and it has happened a few times—is: “Angie, you are just like your mother,” or “You remind me so much of your mom.” My mother was such a beautiful, godly woman. She wasn’t perfect, of course, but her walk with the Lord was exemplary. To be told I look or act like her makes my spirit feel ten feet tall because I admired her so much. But how much more incredible is it when our lives are so saturated with the love of God that people look at us and see our Heavenly Father? A young person once told me something that completely broke my heart open and motivated me to keep striving. They said, “I feel closer to God when I’m with you.” I know that isn’t always the case, believe me! But that is the ultimate goal of my existence. I want to be so much like my Father that when people are around me, the shadow of His presence makes them feel closer to Him. The End of the Matter
That is exactly where this entire progression has been leading us from the very beginning.
The goal of the Christian life is genuine spiritual maturity. We began this journey by adding to our faith. We finish it by discovering that every step has simply been leading us closer to Christ Himself. God has no use for fake Christianity. It’s time for His children to put away hypocrisy, and to let our faith be unfeigned—genuine, real, and transparent. We live in a world that feels like it is spinning out of control, and many days it feels like we must be nearing the very end of time. Peter leaves us with a critical priority for these dark days:
As we grow, we might feel like we are jumping all around between these different levels of maturity from day to day. Some days we have patience, other days we struggle with temperance, and other days we have to rebuild our faith. That is okay. The important thing is that we are consciously, diligently adding these elements to our lives, keeping our eyes on the ultimate summit of spiritual maturity.
True charity is simply being like Jesus. When we allow His mind to be in us, we will love like Him, act like Him, and endure like Him. And one day, when our time on this earth is through and our spirit leaves this frail body, stepping into eternity won’t feel strange or terrifying at all. It will just feel like coming home, because we will finally be standing face-to-face with the One we have loved from afar. Let’s wrap ourselves tightly in the bonds of charity this week, my friends. Let’s show the world exactly who our Father is. Love and blessings, P.S. If you've walked through this entire series with me, thank you. My prayer is that we won't simply know these truths more clearly, but that we will become a little more like Jesus because of them. After all, that’s why God told Peter to write this letter in the first place. Calling all teachers, parents, grandparents, and child care workers. Get your free trial of Storybook Hut today!
Talk to you again soon. Can’t wait?
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