Working on a memorization project

I've been trying to memorize this passage of scripture:

2 Peter 1:3-4

His divine power has granted to us
all things that pertain to life and godliness
through the knowledge of Him who called us 
to His own glory and excellence,
by which He has granted to us 
His precious and very great promises,
so that through them
you may become partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped from the corruption that is in the world
because of sinful desire.

I worked on it awhile back, and almost had it, but then I realized that I had copied it incorrectly onto the index card I was working off.  What a bitter disappointment!  Nothing is quite so difficult as unlearning a mistake, and relearning something correctly.

I am not sure exactly what I had copied wrong, but I think I left out the part about the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, thinking the precious and very great promises were what we were called to.

This passage has a lot of interweaving in it.  I can always memorize better when I understand something fairly clearly.  Perhaps I am not understanding this passage sufficiently to commit it to memory.  I thought I'd work it out, showing my work, like on a math test, right here where I can see it and come back to it.  Maybe that will help.

Okay.

It starts with His divine power.

What is God's divine power?  How do I picture it?  I think I picture it as a shining golden cloud in the sky at sunset, with beams of sunlight streaming from behind it.  God's divine power.  Of course, I know that the picture in my head is only symbolic.

God's divine power is actually the resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead, triumphantly conquering sin and death once for all.  This is something I've been noticing throughout the epistles.  The life-giving resurrection power of the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, and that same power is at work in us, raising our sin-petrified souls to new life in the Spirit (Romans 6:4, Romans 8:11, Ephesians 1:18-20, Colossians 2:12).

His divine power--the power of the Holy Spirit of God to produce life and faith where there was no life or faith.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

This is actually sort of stating the obvious, in a way.  God is the Source of life and goodness.  The power of His Holy Spirit breaks into time and space, to minister to those of us who will respond to Him, and bring us into contact with God's life and goodness.  As we connect with God, He purifies us by the power of His Spirit.  Romans 5:5 describes it as an enduring hope that protects us from being put to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

There is no other source for life and goodness.  God is the essence of life and goodness, and His divine power, the power of His Holy Spirit at work in us, grants us everything we need to be in fellowship with God and to be transformed into the likeness of Christ.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness
through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence.

What does this mean, exactly?  What does knowledge have to do with it?

Perhaps it is about awareness.  We must be aware of God to be saved by God.  He gives us that awareness, awakens it in us and opens our eyes to see the light.  In Ephesians 1:17-18, Paul prays that the Ephesians will have the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God, and that the eyes of their hearts will be enlightened to know the hope He has called them to.  In Ephesians 3:16-19, Paul prays that  they will have strength to comprehend (know and understand) the vastness of the love of God, and that they will know the love of God that surpasses knowledge.

It's a paradox that we have to know Him in order to be able to know Him.  I think that's why 2 Peter 1:3 seems redundant:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness
through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence.

It's almost as though Peter is saying, "The divine power of God has granted us all things that lead us to the divine nature of God through the knowledge of God who called us to His divine nature."

His divine power (the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit)
has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness (the nature of God as it touches and changes us)
through the knowledge of Him (He reveals to us His glory and goodness and love and salvation)
who called us to His own glory and excellence (the nature of God revealed to us, His perfection and beauty).

By His powerful Holy Spirit, God makes Himself and His glorious, beautiful attributes known to us, so we will taste and see that the Lord is good, and desire that goodness in ourselves, so we might be pleasing to Him.  Then He pours out His love into our hearts--everything we need--in a miracle of transforming grace, fulfilling our God-given, righteous desire to identify with Him.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness
through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence...

I might almost have that part.

Then:

...by which He has granted to us His great and very precious promises...

By which?  By what?  How did He grant us His great and very precious promises?  By His divine power?  Through our knowledge of Him?  By His glory and excellence?

How about this... His divine power grants us the knowledge of who He is and what His glory and excellence are like.

Who He is comes first, and it is followed by what He has promised and what He has done.  I alluded to this in my last post when I wrote, "I have meditated on God's attributes and found more comfort in who He is than in what He has done."  Promises of salvation mean nothing if they do not come from a faithful, almighty God.  I wonder if this is one of the reasons why the Old Testament is so important and beautiful.  God spent literally thousands of years creating a history for Himself, illustrating who He is and what He is like, before He sent Jesus Christ as a man to fulfill all the great and very precious promises.

God has demonstrated His existence, His faithfulness, His forbearance, His goodness, His lovingkindness, His mercy, His justice, His righteousness, His power, and His dominion, throughout history.  When people seek Him, He shows Himself to them, reveals who He is, and what He has done in Christ, how He has effected salvation for any who will humbly admit their need for it.

His great and very precious promises:

• forgiveness for all who ask
• salvation for all who come
• the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, present in each of His children, forever and all eternity
• purification
• Spirit-breathed gifts to use in service
• the fruit of obedience
• enduring faith
• a future in glory together with Him

All these are ours because of who He is, the most excellent and glorious God of divine power who calls out to us, inviting us to join Him in life and godliness (Christlikeness).  He calls us to become image-bearers of Christ, and He endows us with every power and resource we need to pursue the calling.

So this is how far we are:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness
through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence
by which he has granted to us His great and very precious promises...

and then,

...so that through them, you may become partakers of the divine nature

The great and very precious promises enable us to become partakers of the divine nature.  I actually think I understand this part.

2 Corinthians 1:20 tells us that all of God's promises find their yes in Christ Jesus.  All of the the promises of God have been kept, are being kept, or will be kept through the victory Jesus Christ won in His work at the cross.  Jesus died so we could be forgiven, transferred from the domain of darkness to God's own glorious Kingdom, reconciled to God and saved.  Jesus died so we could be indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God Himself, purified and made productive, sealed and approved and nurtured and challenged and encouraged.  Jesus died so we could be united with God through the Spirit of God, transformed into the righteous image of God by the power of God, prepared to minister grace to the people on earth as ambassadors for God until the day when we are taken home to live in the presence of God, with His name on our foreheads and the glory of His awesome complexity engulfing our hearts and our minds forever.

Through the promises Christ fulfilled, we become partakers of the divine nature.  God draws us into a relationship with Himself, by which we identify with Him and become like Him (1 John 3:2).  This would move us to tears if we could actually understand it.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His great and very precious promises, so that through them you might become partakers of the divine nature...

And then the end:

...having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Sinful desire is that prideful root in us that turns us away from the love of God.  Satan fools us time and time again into thinking that something other than God (sometimes anything other than God) will be more satisfying than God.  Satan tells us we know best; we know better than our Maker what would be nice for us.  Satan tells us we've got to look out for ourselves.  "Look out for Number One," Satan whispers.  "You're Number One."  Of course, that is malarky.  God is Number One.  God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the source of life, the absolute truth, and the fresh, clear water that satisfies and renews.

When the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts and souls to see the goodness of the Lord, and when He moves us to open our mouths and be filled with the bread of life, we enter a new realm of awareness.  When He reveals to us the paradoxical goodness of dying to our earthly desires and surrendering in humility to His overwhelming lovingkindness, He brings our hearts to new life through a new birth, and our new hearts have new desires for life and godliness which He is eager and willing to fulfill (Titus 3:4-7).

As the Spirit of God moves us to desire the life and godliness of God, working by His power in us, and reminding us of the faithfulness of God to all of His promises, we escape from the corruption that comes from sinful desires.  God gives us godly desires, so we will seek righteousness rather than sin, and He gives us His Spirit, His Spirit's power, His Spirit's guidance and teaching.  His Spirit reminds us of the teachings of Christ, the heart of God, and our sure hope in His promises.  Thus, He gives us everything we need for life and godliness, which also is our escape from corruption and sin.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His great and very precious promises, so that through them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

2 Peter 1:3-4

(I'm starting to get pretty good at typing that!)