2 Peter 1.10-13
“Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder.”
Two times in this passage the apostle uses the word hupomimnesko, which means “to bring to remembrance, to remind.” There are fundamental biblical truths and principles that we know but also periodically need to be reminded of.
God gave this same discipline of remembrance to the people of Israel in the OT:
“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6.6-9)
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” (Psalm 103.2)
“Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.” (Proverbs 4.5)
Reminders of God’s promises, power, and precepts are an essential part of our spiritual growth.
Another important word in the 2 Peter passage is the word “stir up.” It is the Greek diegeiro, and it means “to awake out of sleep; to arouse completely; to stir up.”
Peter says that the purpose of the reminders is to wake us up—to stir us up—in our walk with the Lord. Sometimes Christians drift into a kind of spiritual slumber, and even apathy, and we need biblical reminders to wake us up and stir us up to obedience.
So again, we need constant reminders to respond to God’s grace by “making every effort” to build spiritual virtues into our life and to practice those qualities diligently.
The Lord is calling.
