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Daily Devotions for the Advent and Christmas Seasons
Monday, November 30
2 Peter 1:1-11
by Irene Young Ng
Called To Be A Christian
You made a decision. You’ve decided to become a Christian. Did you think it would be a life-changing decision? Questions like these now come flooding into your mind: What does it mean to be a Christian? Do my actions show that I am a Christian? How can I be nurtured and sustained in my new life?
In reading and reflecting upon 2 Peter 1:1-11, this passage offers me hope, challenges, and comfort to sustain me in my faith in God. Peter wrote this letter to the Christians in the five provinces of Asia Minor, readers who were not Jews, but Gentiles. As a Gentile, his letter speaks to me, offering me ways to model my behavior on what we know of God’s character: goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, and love.
Since elementary school, I had trouble merging the Chinese culture of my parents with American culture. Wanting to fit in with my peers, I looked down upon my parents and their old-fashioned views. At fifteen, I became a Christian after I had been active in the Cameron House program for two years. I began to see my parents from their point of view, concentrating on the positive instead of the negative. I marveled at their life-changing decision to immigrate from Toishan to the USA. And so began a new maturity as a new Christian, moving from selfishness to the beginning of selflessness.
In 2003, I was called to be on the church’s session and on the Mission & Evangelism Committee. A project this committee promoted in September was writing about health care reform to our congressional representatives, Feinstein, Boxer and Pelosi. Everyone should have access to affordable and comprehensive health care. This concern has its roots in what is written in 2 Peter and modeling my behavior on what I know about God’s character.
Prayer
Dear God, thank you for calling us to be Christians. We respond to your love by trying to live each new day as you would have us live, by modeling our behavior on what we know of you. Amen.