If you have been following my writings for any length of time, you know that the Lord has drawn me into the message of spiritual maturity. For that reason He has revealed and continues to reveal His truth regarding my most frequently quoted verse; Rom 8:29. And it seems that at every turn He is taking something He is showing me and driving it directly to that scripture. He has done it in His Word, in my thoughts, and in the writings and teachings of others… and He did it again last month.

I read the challenge of Oswald Chambers last month as it related to obedience. And while I could see the direct tie of obedience to spiritual maturity and being “transformed” into the image (character) of Jesus, the Holy Spirit led me deeper. He asked me what I already had as a result of my salvation? My first thoughts surrounded the blessing of eternity with the Lord, but that wasn’t where He was going. After some thought the issue of righteousness (right standing with God) came to the forefront. And that took me back to something Oswald Chambers said in relation to 2 Pet 1:5:

2 Peter 1:5-6 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge,

The key words he focused on in that verse were “diligence” and “add.” We are to use all diligence to “add” all those traits to our character. And when you think about them, each one in this verse and those that follow, they are truly impossible for us to accomplish in the natural; no matter how diligent we are. And that takes us back to Rom 8:29 and the very thing that “does” make it possible.

Rom 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

How is it possible that we are to be conformed into His image, His character? By our diligence? Diligence to what? What I was not getting was the fact that what makes that possible is already ours… The righteousness of Christ. That has already been given to us, at the moment of our salvation. Look at verses 3 and 4:

2 Peter 1:3-4 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

As I have said many, many times, our transformation is the result of allowing the Holy Spirit to bring the righteousness of Christ we have from the inside to the outside. And the key to accomplishing that is to allow, through “all diligence,” the Holy Spirit to “add” these virtues to our character. And, at least for me, I have in the past looked for God to give me “big things” to do to “add.” Chambers referred to that as trying to be “illuminated versions” of Jesus. But that is not what God’s process is all about… us waiting for Him to give us “big things” to do for Him. Quite the contrary, being transformed into the image of Jesus is just the opposite.

Remember that at the last supper Jesus took a towel and washed His disciples’ feet. He was “revealing” His character, the character of God, in the common acts of life. That is what Peter is talking about in these verses. We are to become transformed as we diligently pursue the Holy Spirit as He leads us through the smallest details of life. But what happens when we do is that we will experience the incredible power of God’s grace in our action. Chambers put it well…

If I do my duty, not for duty’s sake, but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience the whole superb grace of God is mine through the Atonement.

The hard part for us is to understand and be diligently obedient to the fact that we are only going to be successfully transformed if we continue to “add” daily. None of us is born either naturally or supernaturally with character, we have to make it. That is the hard part, but at the same time we need to remember that we have inherited the divine nature that is the power that will enable us to form the habits that will transform our character to the character we have already been given.

We already have the ability to become partakers of the divine nature. The question is, will we?