The Process

ByJim Stephens

Reading: 2 Peter 1-3; John 1

5 So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6 Knowing God better leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  (2 Peter 1:5-8 NLT)

Simon the fisherman from Galilee had gone from being an impulsive, emotion-driven “good-old-boy,” to being the rock-solid man of God—Simon Peter—that Jesus had named him to be the first time they met.

Peter’s transformation had been a process of living and learning, outspokenness and correction, steps of faith and stumbles of doubt, falling down and getting up again. It was a process!

My life as a Christ-follower is also a process. It began with a spiritual new-birth as a child of God. It continues with a day-to-day process of living and learning, disobedience and discipline, mistakes and correction, struggles and victories, disappointment and encouragement, obedience and growth. It’s a process!

One term for this life-long process is “discipleship.” Jesus Christ is the master teacher and I am his “disciple”, his student of life, his student for life. He is the journeyman, I am the apprentice. He is the expert, I am the novice. It’s a process!

The very best possible outcome of this process is that I will become more like Jesus each day! I will think more like he thinks, love more like he loves, give more like he gives, and know God more like Jesus knows his Father! I’m enrolled for life as a disciple of Jesus. It’s a process!

Prayer:

Father, Thanks for loving me, redeeming me, making me your child, and calling me to a life of purpose and significance. Thanks for apprenticing me to Master Jesus. Jesus, thanks for your patient teaching, your patient example, your patient leading. Thanks for never giving up on me. I embrace your calling. Holy Spirit, thanks for leading me, nudging me, convicting me, and transforming me. I submit to the process. Amen.