When life gets into a routine it becomes a long rut. A long rut is really a very long grave.

We’ve seen how God has so worked through a barren woman’s suffering so that she would bring forth a son who will be devoted to God all his life, and do all God’s will.

Today we see why that is necessary. The heart of the nation is its worship. If the worship is corrupt, the people will be in darkness and the nation will be in a mess.

You overcome in life when you prevail with God.

We get the impression that life is compartmentalised into spiritual things over here and secular, practical things here, and they never interact, God doesn’t work in the real world.

The Bible shows us that everything in life is spiritual. Therefore the only solution to life is spiritual. God changes things.

God created the world with purpose that nothing can erase: it’s made for judgment.

He created time, too. Time has a purpose: to prepare us for eternity.

Why does this world exist? What’s the purpose? People have become more or less accustomed to the idea that it just happened by accident.

We’re supposed to guard ourselves against false teachers. How do you identify a false teacher? Do you really have to go through all the teaching with a fine-toothed comb, looking for false teaching like it was lice?

That’s too much work.

Peter wants his readers to be have abundant entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the dangers barring our entrance is the temptation of false teaching that appeals to our natural self- centeredness.

Joanie and I had coffee with friends who are musicians and we were talking about counterfeit instruments, like counterfeit Stradivarius violins and counterfeit 1959 Gibson Les Paul electric guitars. Worth millions if they are real, not so much if they are fake.

To others it might seem unimportant to enter a kingdom that hasn’t been established yet. But Peter says, it will be established. Enter into it now.