Present Grace

But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. 2 Peter 1:9

Facing your present sins and lack of growth can be downright unproductive. It doesn't have to be but it certainly can be. I was talking to a friend recently who was struggling in his Christian life. He had grown very depressed and had turned inward. Nothing seemed to help. As we talked, I found him pre-occupied with his present failures and lack of growth in grace. He was stuck because he could only think about his current situation and immediate state of mind.

U2 writes a song about being stuck in a moment and not being able to get out of it. Sadly, it is a song about suicide. You don’t have to be suicidal to feel stuck, though. There are degrees, suicide being the worst. As I reflected on my friend's situation, I was reminded of 2 Peter 1:9. It is a picture of being stuck in the present with no perception of the past or future.

It is a simple verse where the apostle Peter avoids a truncated Gospel. He maintains an appropriate focus on past grace, present grace and future grace. Without this, getting stuck is inevitable. The phrase, “but if anyone does not have them” is referring to the previous verses where Peter highlights various character qualities like goodness, self-control, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. If these character qualities are not evident in your life, albeit imperfectly, Peter says that it is because you have a truncated understanding of your relationship to Christ.

First, you are nearsighted and blind. What could that mean? Someone who is near-sighted can only see things that are up close. A blind person can’t even see that. In other words, neither have the ability to see things in the distance. There is no sense of hope or a future orientation. John says in I John 3:3 that “Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” You have to see future grace to live in the present.

But Peter also says that this person has forgotten something in the past. He has forgotten that he has been cleansed (past tense) from his sins. You have to see past grace, too, to live in the present. In his commentary on 2 Peter, Martyn Lloyd Jones has this to say, “This is a person who not only cannot see forwards, he cannot see backwards either.”

This simple re-orienting of my friend's gaze helped him get unstuck. As he gazed backwards and saw the reality of the forgiveness of his sins, he was grateful and began to talk to God with gratitude. As he gazed forward to the promised hope of complete deliverance from sin and suffering, he became hopeful. This did not happen overnight nor did it happen without seasons of doubt. Still, real progress was made. What do you look to in your past that brings stability in the present? What do you look to in the future that brings stability in the present? These two orientations will drive how you live right now and how you will relate to God.