“May grace (God’s favor) and peace (which is perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts) be multiplied to you [the full, personal, precise, and correct] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2 AMP).
In today’s text, Peter was praying for those believers and saying to them, “May God’s favor be yours.”
Grace is God’s favor. Favor allows us to do things that others cannot do. For example: I have favor in my parent’s house. I have been given liberty there. I can unlock the door, walk straight to the kitchen, open the refrigerator and help myself to whatever I find to eat. I can do that without any fear, because that is my parent’s home.
But suppose a stranger sneaked into my parent’s house. If he opened the refrigerator to look for some food, he might be surprised at the result. He will never receive the same kind of favor that I have.
On that same note, we have God’s favor multiplied toward us. When His Word is in us, and we abide in His Word, we can ask God, in Jesus’ name, for whatever we want, and He gives it to us. When God gives us favor, we are really blessed!
Now we want to look at peace. We see in our text that peace has a six-fold definition: perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, freedom from all fear, deliverance from agitating passions, and deliverance from all moral conflicts.
Think of all the fears you could be experiencing these days: fear of crime, fear of failure, fear of sickness and disease, fear of financial loss, fear of dying young, fear of losing your loved ones, fear that something bad will happen to you. This one verse covers any area of fear you can imagine.
Peter was praying that God’s people be set free from all fears; from agitating passions – passions of the flesh, things the body craves and desires. He wanted them to be free form moral conflicts. When you are without those conflicts, you can know God’s way and be able to function and operate in it.
God has given you grace and peace, or favor and freedom from fear. The two of these together are the ingredients that make up a powerful man and woman of God. The more you get to know God, the more they are manifested in your life, because they are given through the knowledge of God.
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Keith Butler has been an ordained minister since 1974. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and holds diplomas from Canada Christian College and Rhema Bible Training Center.
He serves in ministry with the support of his lovely wife, Pastor Deborah L. Butler, and their children: Pastor Andre Butler (granddaughters Alexis, Angela, and April), Pastor MiChelle Ferguson and husband Pastor Lee (grandson Lucas), and Minister Kristina Jenkins and husband Pastor Joel (grandsons Andrew and Austin, and granddaughter Alyssa).