…seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. 

                                                                                                                                                                     2 Peter 1:3-4 

Before we begin to look at what it means to live with godly attributes, we need to understand that God, through Jesus Christ, has already given us everything we need to live a successful, victorious, and abundant life in Christ. God has “granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.” “He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises.” And all of this is accessible through a “true knowledge” of who we are in Christ.

So what are these promises and how do they assist us in living God-honoring lives? First, let’s consider what God has done for us by reading Isaiah’s prophecy of Christ, written centuries before His birth:

Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

                                                                                                               Isaiah 53:4-6

The cross was a place in which God literally substituted Himself for what was due us (2 Corinthians 5:19). Jesus carried our griefs and sorrows on the cross. He was pierced through for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. Jesus’ obedience on the cross brings well-being and healing for the believer. God caused the punishment for our sin to completely and entirely fall on Him.

When we live lives of grief and sorrow, we are forgetting the cross. When we live life in fear of God punishing us, we forget the cross. And when we live life without a true knowledge of who we are in Jesus, we already position ourselves to be defeated. Consider Paul’s summary of this same magnificent promise: 

For He (God) rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

                                                                                                            Colossians 1:13-14

As believers in Jesus, we have already been redeemed. To be redeemed is to be delivered. It is to be freed by payment of a ransom and that ransom was paid by Christ Himself. Along with redemption is forgiveness. God no longer holds the believer guilty of his sin. All of this was accomplished by God, through the cross, for those of us who believe. It’s no wonder that Peter tells us that God has given us everything we need through His promises.

The cross of Jesus draws one of two responses. For those who are perishing, it is absolute foolishness, but for those of us who are being saved, it is the very power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18). Embrace the cross and the Savior who gave Himself for you in order to give you everything to live life joyfully and abundantly.