«　WEEK 2　DAY 6　»

　　1 Pet. 5:10 But the God of all grace, He who has called you into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus…

　　Col. And not holding the Head, out from whom all the 2:19 Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God.

　　Rev. 22:21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

　　We come to the most crucial point, which is the grace in God’s economy in the believers’ experience. The everyday experience of the believers must be grace. If it is not grace, it is not the believers’ experience; if it is not grace, it is not the Christian living. The Christian living must be the living of grace, the experience of grace …Grace is God’s embodiment—Christ. Hence, the grace experienced by the believers is Christ, the embodiment of God. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Law and Grace of God in His Economy,” p. 321)

　　Peter tells us to grow in grace [2 Pet. 3:18]. This proves that grace is not material things. Grace is something living, something in which we can grow…This grace is the divine person, the very Triune God who has been imparted into us as our life for our enjoyment. This is the grace in which we grow. May the Lord grant us all to grow in the divine person who is grace. (CWWL, 1973-1974, vol. 1, pp. 374-375)

　　In 2 Peter 3:18, Peter tells us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” This verse reveals Christ as the element of our growth. The word grow in verse 18 indicates that what Peter wrote in his two Epistles is a matter of life (1 Pet. 2:2; Eph. 4:15; Col. 2:19). To grow in grace is to grow by the bountiful supply of eternal life provided by the divine power (2 Pet. 1:3-4), and to grow in the knowledge of the Lord is to grow by the realization of what Christ is. This is to grow by the enjoyment of grace and the realization of truth (John 1:14). Grace is the Triune God being life and the life supply to us. We need to grow in this life supply, in this nourishment. Therefore, to grow in grace means to grow in this inward source of the supply of life. At the beginning of this Epistle, Peter speaks of grace, and now at the end he charges us to grow in this grace.

　　Grace is God Himself with divinity processed through incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension. All these elements of grace are within us to be one with us. Grace is God Himself as our life to be one with us, to save us, to make His home in us, and to be formed in us. To grow in grace is to grow in the increase of God. Grace is God’s visitation to us to stay in us and make Himself one with us. We need to grow in such a grace for His glory today and unto the day of eternity. Second Peter 3:18 is the concluding word of the apostle Peter’s writings, indicating that whatever he has written is of, in, by, and through the grace of God.

　　Verse 18 tells us to “grow in the grace.” This indicates that to grow is by the feeding and watering, as revealed by Peter in 1 Peter 2:2 and by Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:2 and 6. To grow in grace is to grow in the enjoyment of all that Christ is to us as our spiritual food and living water. All the riches of what Christ is to us are for our growth in life. The more we enjoy the riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8), the more we will grow in life (4:15). Peter… encourages us to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The realization of the knowledge of our Lord equals truth, the reality of all that He is, as in John 1:14 and 17. Peter charged the believers to grow not only in grace but also in this truth. The full knowledge of Jesus Christ, knowing Christ in a deeper and fuller way, helps us to grow and develop. Both in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the believers should grow unto His glory both now and unto the day of eternity. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3947-3949)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of 2 Peter, msg. 13