Partakers of the Divine Nature
It is a lie that God is holding back on us. He made us so that He could share all He has with us. Don't believe the slander about God!
I admit it, I can be a workaholic. One of my greatest personal fears is being "ineffective," so I work really hard to "produce," to "get results," and to achieve. Now, that isn't necessarily bad as long as our definitions are correct!
Ah, and there's the rub! What do I mean when I say "effective," "successful," or "productive?" Forgetting to do that hard work means there is a high likelihood of truly missing the point. In fact, most of the problems of my own life can be traced to a misidentification, not of my intentions (that's for another day) but of my goals!
And you can’t know if your goals are healthy or even proper if you don’t know WHY you were made in the first place. All your goals should be informed and formed by the foundational goal of your whole life!
Hint: You were made to be “like Christ.”
Look at our Lesson today from St. Peter in 2 Peter 1:1-10:
SIMON PETER, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promise, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these things are yours and abound, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall.
You see, St. Peter here gives us some of the loftiest words of all the scriptures. Pretty amazing when we remember the Peter of the Gospels as a fisherman and not a very patient man at that! It's amazing to see the power of the Day of Pentecost on this great saint of the Faith! St. Peter tells us that we are intended to become "partakers of the divine nature."
This invitation to enter into deep and life-changing communion with God Himself reorients our very understanding of what it means to be "effective" or "successful." It means we are invited to "escape corruption." And it means that being effective means putting into practice this freedom from corruption in our everyday lives. St. Peter uses the word "supplement," and I love that! Add these to your proclaimed faith: Virtue, Knowledge, Self-control, Steadfastness, Godliness, Brotherly Affection, and Love.
All the above is already yours in partaking of the divine nature through the Mystery of the Eucharist, so make sure these are activated in your life and when you do, they will "keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful." It is the very reality of being in intimate communion with God, of partaking in His divine nature, that liberates your life from ineffectiveness. And being effective means being actively growing in your relationship with God in and through His Church!
No wonder St. Peter, after offering us this lofty laundry list of effective living, encourages us to be more zealous to confirm our calling as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is in this zealousness that will protect us from falling away from this precious faith. Every time I think of this, I think of that moment in the Divine Liturgy when I add hot water to the chalice of wine at the altar with these words: "The zeal of Faith, Full of the Holy Spirit." As I pour the hot water into the chalice, the visible steam rises and the wine is made "warm" by the zeal of the faithful! Such a powerful image of the necessary effectiveness of all the people of the parish to be active, engaged, and participating in this partaking of the divine nature!
The great Saint Polycarp is a perfect example of a person who so understood his purpose and his great honor in being invited by God to enter into communion with God. St. Polycarp was a disciple of St. John the Apostle, and some say Polycarp was one of the children Jesus sat on His lap when He said, “Suffer the little children to come to Me.” This holy man was the Bishop of Smyrna and was arrested in his very old age (86 years old) under the fifth persecution of the Christians by Emperor Marcus Aurelius. When the soldiers came to arrest him, this godly man asked if he might pray first, and then he proceeded to pray for everyone he had ever known, finishing his prayer with petitions to God for the soldiers who came to arrest him. He was martyred for his faith in Christ around the year 163 AD.
Today, are you effective in your faith? Are you aware of God's invitation to you to "partake" of the divine nature and to become a person who radiates the warmth of the Spirit in your life? Perhaps it's time to redefine effectiveness to be effective first in faith so that reality can shape all other desires and work in our lives. You're guaranteed to live a Normal Orthodox life if you do!
P.S. As a sharer of the ways and a successor to the throne of the Apostles, O inspired of God, you found discipline to be a means of ascent to divine vision. Wherefore, having rightly divided the word of truth, you did also contest for the Faith even unto blood, O Hieromartyr Polycarp. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls be saved.
