Growing in Grace and Knowledge

Growing in Grace and Knowledge.

“But you, dear friends who I love with agape love, are well-warned. Be on guard lest you lose your footing and get swept off your feet by these deceptive and wicked teachers. Grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. All glory to the Master, both now and forever more! Yes and Amen!” (2 Peter 3:17-18).

Grace and knowledge are two of those rich biblical concepts that could easily be out of our reach, too theoretical to be practically understood. Thankfully, God is apparently not content to remain in the abstract forever, and He does not intend for his truth and reality to be disengaged from human experience. All through Scripture, it seems that God was graciously turning the intangible to the tangible. He was dissatisfied, it seems, with a truth that was merely a great idea or a profound concept. The abstract was not good enough for God. His truths are intended to be understood at the experiential level, to be tangible reality that is lived into and lived out so its meaning could be clear. God has a pattern of turning theory into practice, mystery into substance. The intangible must be tangibly translated into human experience, the impersonal into the personal. Consider the many ways God turned the abstract and theoretical into the tangible and personal:

• The eternal silence of God erupts into creative speech ( 1:1);
• The brilliant ideas in Creator God’s imagination become physical reality ( 1-2);
• Divine wisdom becomes human ( 8; 1 Cor. 1:24);
• Yahweh’s distant thoughts are spoken out loud by human prophets and prophetesses;
• The inscrutable Creator God becomes the tangible Son of God (the Gospels);
• The Spirit-breath becomes powerful wind with tongues of fire (Acts 2);
• The heavenly ideal of Love becomes a Person putting it into earthly practice;
• Invisible Divinity is demonstrated by visible signs and wonders;
• Spiritual cleansing is accomplished by physical water in Baptism;
• Spiritual food is eaten in bread and wine in Communion;
• Belief in Christian propositions are proven by Christian works.

So let’s add grace and knowledge to that list, two abstract truths that God intends to become a personal reality, an essential part of our human experience.

GRACE in the Hebrew Bible: (Hebrew, “chen” “chanan”) The centerpiece of God’s character that has forever initiated divine favor to those who don’t deserve it; the nature of God which prefers to show mercy to those who haven’t earned it; the heart of God which leans toward offering the free gift of love and acceptance to others, free of charge; God’s desire to restore and heal whose who are broken whether or not they deserve it; the lovingkindness provided by God as a free gift for no apparent reason other than sheer compassion.

GRACE in the New Testament: The Greek word here for “grace’ is the tremendously rich word of “charis,” which is usually pronounced “care-iss.” This important biblical word, used over 170 times in the New Testament,  was at one point a general term adopted from Greek mythology, and could mean goodwill, loveliness, charm, sweetness, favor, and that which gives delight. But St. Paul especially expanded its meaning to point to God’s undeserved favor on us; His unearned gift of good will; His unmerited kindness; His unexpected spiritual blessings that bring us delight and pleasure; God’s free gift of acceptance with no strings attached. This is the basic concept, but Paul used “grace” as a word that summarizes all the blessings that God offers to us. “Grace and peace” is found a number of times in his closing remarks or benediction. This biblical grace is an absolute truth, and so grace exists whether or not we choose to accept it.

So, then, what does St. Peter means when he urges all believers to “grow in grace?” The only spiritual ground that is fertile, that is worth trusting, is the soil of God’s grace. This Grace has a name… Jesus Christ. Jesus is the undeserved Gift we have been given in Whom we plant our little mustard seed of faith. When we believe in Christ through His Spirit, we are implanting ourselves into the fertile soil of the God Who is Love, the Son of God Who is Grace. When we plant our seed of trust in Him, we are believing in the sure fact of His gift of love for us. The grace of Christ is the fertile soil in Whom we are rooted and grounded in love ( Ephesians 3:16-19), buried in God’s grace, hidden in Jesus. Growing in God’s grace is a gradual process, one that takes patience and faith and trust.

Plantings of the Lord. So to grow in grace is to deepen our roots into the soil of Jesus in order to receive the nourishment needed to grow, break ground, and bear fruit. To grow in grace is the spiritual process of maturing in our life-giving experience of God’s love and grace. To grow in grace is to enlarge our acceptance of His love for us, to progress in our awareness of His unmerited compassion for us. Growing in grace is developing an increasing dependence upon God’s favor and goodwill, to tighten our embrace of God’s love.

To grow in grace is to strengthen our appreciation for what God’s grace has accomplished for us. To grow in grace is to mature in our understanding of God’s love, to begin to experience the height and breadth and width and depth of His grace (Ephesians 3:17-19). When we grow in grace, we are developing an inspired level of cooperation with the works of grace in our lives. Growing in grace is to strengthen our willingness to remain content within His refuge of grace, to be at peace in the resting place of God’s mercy.

To grow in grace means we are developing a resistance to stagnancy, to being content to stay the same, frustrating the growth principle in our faith. To grow in grace means we feel less and less likely to lie dormant, to refuse the nourishment we need, to ignore the power of grace in our state of grace. To grow in grace means that we will guard our seed of faith in God’s soil of love. We will grow in protecting our little seed without presuming on God’s good graces. Growing in grace means we will not allow the hungry birds of the enemy to swoop in and take us away from God’s grace.

KNOWLEDGE. Tightly woven together with grace in our maturation process, says Peter in his Second Letter, is the vital increase in our knowledge of God in Christ through the Spirit.  Once again, the biblical understanding of “knowledge” may be different than what the world considers it to be.  The Jewish way of knowing was obviously much more than a mental activity. It was more than to comprehend or understand something, more than learning information and facts. Yada (Hebrew) and Gnosis (Greek) implies an intimate knowledge, a deep personal union, a personal experience with someone, with the truth. In the Hebrew and Christian mind, we don’t really know something until it becomes a part of us, something that changes us in some way. To know is to be able to live it out, to experience participation with that which is known. To know is to experience someone or something in a profoundly personal way.

Knowledge is a relationship word in the Scripture. The Bible says that one can only know something through personal involvement, through an intimate experience with whatever or whoever is known. Knowing something involves a heartfelt focus, an intense investment. To know something is to care for it, to give oneself over to it. Knowledge is a personal union with whatever is known. To know is to have a committed understanding of something or someone. One doesn’t know something unless it has changed the knower. Knowledge of Scripture is like this, or knowledge of God Himself. When Jesus talked about knowing Him and thus knowing the Father, it is this very experience He’s talking about. A knowledge of Him that is personal, intimate, committed. Knowing Him in a way that changes us. Knowledge that involves giving ourselves over to Him in a deeply personal way. Head knowledge is not sufficient, because it leaves the knowledge in the abstract. Limiting our knowledge to religious principles, doctrinal statements or theological propositions doesn’t go deep enough. Too many of us stop at talking about God, instead of talking to God. Intellectual knowledge is a dead end if disconnected from a personal relationship with God. Knowing God requires a personal investment, an intimate involvement. Otherwise, it’s all just an abstract idea. And God can tell the difference. The worst words any of us could possibly ever hear at the End is, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” (Matt. 7:33).

A spiritual relationship with God seems best understood in the context of “knowledge” in the biblical sense, a deep union involving spiritual relations between God and the believer. In the same way that Adam and Eve “knew” each other physically, God wants to “know” us spiritually, and for us to know Him at that same level. To walk with the Lord is to grow in our “knowledge” of Him, to experience spiritual relations with Him in an intimate way.

Mustard Seed of Faith. When we become a planting of the Lord into His soil of grace, the element of faith is of course needed for the implanting to even begin. Here is a brief word on faith:

I Believe (from the Greek word, Pistis): I faithfully trust in; I have loyal faith in; I am persuaded to rely upon; I have full confidence in; I am convinced of the truth of; I entrust my well-being to. The Amplified Bible translates “Pistis” as meaning “that leaning of the entire personality on God in absolute trust and confidence.”

A Description of Pistis from Hebrews 11:1: Trusting in the reality of what we hope for, and accepting what we need to prove the unseen; Being convinced of what is needed to bring our hopes into reality; Being fully persuaded that something is real even if we don’t see it; Accepting as real fact what is not revealed to the senses; Trusting in the hopes of our unseen foundation; Being confident of what we hope for, and convinced about things we do not see.

“It is impossible to please God, or be well-pleasing in His sight, without faithfully trusting in Him.” (Hebrews 11:6).

Faith Requires Imagination and Examples:  On the one hand, is it even possible to develop any faith at all unless one has a vivid imagination? The faithful are called upon to trust in the invisible, that the unseen is more real than the seen! To trust in God requires us to rely on the invisible reality of God! A true believer leans into the unseen arms of the Lord, and trust in His spiritual presence. To trust in God is to take God at His Word, sight unseen. This includes our eventual destiny, too. Our heavenly future in the New Kingdom is in the unseen world, and a person with faith continues to be convinced of the reality of that destiny. We need to grow in developing a vivid imagination, a sanctified imagination, baptized in the Holy Spirit. But on the other hand, perhaps everything isn’t unseen after all… Each believer is being seen, right? So each believer helps to prove the unseen power of God. Each follower is intended to make Jesus visible and thus prove the unseen. Each believer is to reveal God’s presence and power, and by doing so making the unseen God more visible to the world.

“In Christ Jesus, the most important aspect is faith (pistis) expressing itself in love. The only thing that matters, that really counts, is faithful trust as brought to perfection through the demonstration of agape love.” (Galatians 5:6).

Fleshing Out the Faith. Belief and trust is not just an idea or an intellectual conviction. To believe is not merely a head word, but instead is an active word. Any reliance on Christ must be fleshed out, it must be proven in one’s life. Genuine faith is actively trusting in God as a lifestyle. This spiritual connection between the mental conviction and the fleshing out not only proves our faith to be genuine, but it also energizes one’s faith. Our belief in the truth of Christ and His grace is authentic only when it is expressed outwardly in the way we live our lives. When we demonstrate our faith through love, our little seed of faith has absolutely broken ground and is displaying the fruit of a healthy planting of the Lord. .