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| Partakers Of The Divine Nature
What a glorious truth!!! The great challenge for believers is to live like partakers of the divine nature, to behave like Him. That is what He wants to lead and guide us into. Even though we are often miserable failures at following Him, He promises His help and guidance and we need it every moment.
Jeremiah 10:23: O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
Psalms 37:23: The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
Spurgeon on 2 Peter 1:4b: . . . partakers of the divine nature . . .
To be a partaker of the divine nature is not, of course, to become God. That cannot be. The essence of Deity is not to be participated in by the creature. Between the creature and the Creator there must ever be a gulf fixed in respect of essence; but as the first man Adam was made in the image of God, so we, by the renewal of the Holy Spirit, are in a yet diviner sense made in the image of the Most High, and are partakers of the divine nature. We are, by grace, made like God. *God is love*; we become love. *He that loveth is born of God.* God is truth; we become true, and we love that which is true: God is good, and He makes us good by His grace, so that we become the pure in heart who shall see God. Moreover, we become partakers of the divine nature in even a higher sense than this. In fact, in as lofty a sense as can be conceived, short of our being absolutely divine. Do we not become members of the body of the divine person of Christ? Yes, the same blood which flows in the head flows in the hand: and the same life which quickens Christ quickens His people, for *Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.* Nay, as if this were not enough, we are married unto Christ. He hath betrothed us unto Himself in righteousness and in faithfulness, and he who is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Oh! marvellous mystery! we look into it, but who shall understand it? One with Jesus-so one with Him that the branch is not more one with the vine than we are a part of the Lord, our Saviour, and our Redeemer! While we rejoice in this, let us remember that those who are made partakers of the divine nature will manifest their high and holy relationship in their intercourse with others, and make it evident by their daily walk and conversation that they have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. O for more divine holiness of life!
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