“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:”
— 2 Peter 1:3 (King James Version)
You know the feeling in the doorway before something hard. Maybe it's a Monday where the inbox already looks like a wall, or the drive to a meeting you've rehearsed a hundred times in your head. You stand there and take a quick inventory of yourself — my patience, my nerve, my strength — and the tally comes up short. I don't have what this takes, you think. So you go in bracing, half-defeated before the first word.
Peter's line reaches straight into that doorway. Notice the tense: the power hath given — past, finished, already done. Not a supply you must earn today, but a provision already delivered. He says "all things that pertain unto life and godliness," which is to say: the equipment for actually living well is not out of stock. This is what the old writers meant by grace — not a reward for the impressive, but a gift that arrives before we've done anything to deserve it.
Saint Augustine, the fourth-century bishop of Hippo who spent his restless youth chasing everything but God, learned this the hard way. He taught that grace comes first — that God does not find us worthy and then love us, but loves us and thereby makes us new. What we cannot manufacture in ourselves, he insisted, is exactly what has been given. Centuries later, Charles Spurgeon, the great London preacher, put it in his plain, warm way: grace is the gift we did not seek and could not buy, poured out on people who had nothing to bring but their need. Both men were saying what Peter says — you are not being asked to generate the strength; you are being asked to draw on it.
So change your inventory. Before you walk through today's doorway, don't count what you feel; remember what you've been given. The verse ends by naming where all this is headed — "glory and virtue" — the assurance that you were called toward something good, not left to scrape by.
You are more supplied than you feel. The provision is already in the pack; today, simply reach in.
A Prayer for Today
Gracious God, thank You that everything I need for this day has already been given, long before I asked. When I stand at the hard doorways, remind me not to count my own small strength but to draw on Your abundant grace. Lead me toward the good You have called me to, and let me carry Your provision into every moment. Amen.