Thursday after Populus Sion, The Second Sunday in Advent
Posted on December 14, 2023 by under
Scripture: 2 Peter 1:2-9 (NKJV)
1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 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.
5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
Devotion
“For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“If these things are yours…” What things? Faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love; these all flow from “the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ our Lord.” Through that knowledge we have “escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
Lust is all about “what I want.” These virtues listed by St. Peter are “others-centered,” restraining our self-centeredness and teaching us to attend to the needs of others. Christ sacrificed Himself to attend to our needs—forgiveness of sin, deliverance from the power of the devil, victory over death. His gifts overflow from us to others. With hearts full of the joy for our salvation in Christ Jesus, we rise up in the morning and lay hold afresh of our Baptism. Thereby we again have the old Adam in us drowned, even as the new man arises, who will live before God in righteousness and purity. God grant us strength to live according to that new man this day, to confess before the world who and what we are in Christ Jesus.
Collect: Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Thine only-begotten Son, so that by His coming we may be enabled to serve Thee with pure minds; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Collect for the Season of Advent
Stir up, we beseech Thee, Thy power, O Lord, and come, that by Thy protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins, and saved by Thy mighty deliverance; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
