2 Peter 3:1-7
As a pastor, I have an area of weakness and shortcoming. I grew up with parents who are believers. They taught me and my sisters about God and the Bible from my earliest memories. This gives me some great benefits, but an overlooked downside is that I struggle to understand an unbeliever’s point of view.
Verse 5 indicates that unbelievers recognize that the easiest and logical explanation for things such things as the Grand Canyon is a worldwide flood. They make a decision to not believe. Along with choosing to disbelieve the flood, they often also disbelieve in the Bible, God, sin, and salvation. I strive to understand a mind that so vigorously opposes my core beliefs.
As our minds become more and more aligned with the mind of Christ, we tend to forget where we came from. If we are to reach unbelievers, we must come to grips with our old views. We will have to recognize the differences and seek to draw them to Christ.
One of the points that the apostles taught, but is not directly cited here, says that we are simply God’s representatives. We do not have the power by ourselves to change anyone much less change their mind and make them a new creation. What a wonderfully freeing theological point! My critical responsibility is to proclaim as we have seen this week. God’s job is to make the make the changes in a person. The wonder is that He uses us to help bring that change.