Okay, so this morning’s devo was interrupted by an unplanned hunt — a hunt for a beeping smoke detector. Ugh! Found it. Kinda of. There were two in the room. Swapped out the battery in the most accessible one first. Nope. Not it. Go get the ladder. Ugh, again! All to say that while my reading time this morning stayed mostly in tact, writing time was severely compromised. So, here’s a quick attempt to bullet point what I’m chewing on in 2Peter 1:1-11.

• While we have been translated into the kingdom of light, our lives now are about entering that eternal kingdom (1:11).
• The way we enter the kingdom — which is also the way that mitigates stumbling as we follow Christ — is to make every effort to confirm our calling (1:10). Make every effort! We can’t work our way into heaven, but we can work our way into the kingdom. Hmm . . .
• By making this effort, it keeps us from being “useless or unfruitful” in our experiential knowledge of Jesus. Head knowledge is intended to translate into life practice which is intended to bear fruit for Jesus (1:8).
• The “every effort” we put in to confirm our calling is the same “every effort” we are to put in to “supplement” our faith. While we are saved by faith alone, we are not saved for faith alone. We are to add to our faith. Faith + goodness + knowledge + self-control + endurance + godliness + brotherly affection + love (1:5) = confirming your salvation.
• Our effort? Yup. Our ability? Not so much. It’s His divine power that’s given us all we need to participate in the divine nature that we share in through the “precious promises” He has given us (1:4-5) which sources the effort, that adds to our faith, that bears the fruit, that confirms our calling, that allows us to enter into the eternal kingdom now.
• But, while it might be we who are adding, it is He who is multiplying!

To those who have received a faith equal to ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

(2Peter 1:1b-2 CSB)

Grace multiplied. Struck me as kind of unfamiliar. Abundant grace? Abounding grace? Amazing grace? Pretty familiar. Multiplied grace? Not so much. Only found here and in 1Peter and in Jude.

So, while I am to make every effort to ADD, He enables me to add by MULTIPLYING. While I work to enter into what I have been translated into, He supplies, and supplies more and more and more and more, what I need as I participate in the divine nature by His divine power.

How’s that for some divine math?

Grace multiplied. All for God’s glory.