{"id":1027,"date":"2009-06-28T19:36:15","date_gmt":"2009-06-29T01:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2009-06-28T19:36:15","modified_gmt":"2009-06-29T01:36:15","slug":"2-peter-311-earthly-or-heavenly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/2-peter-311-earthly-or-heavenly\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Peter 3:11 – Earthly or Heavenly?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

2 Peter 3:11<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We are either of the earthly family or the heavenly family. No one can be a member of both.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The words \u201cwhat kind of people<\/span>\u201d come from potapos<\/span><\/em>, made up of the interrogative poios<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cwhat such\u201d or \u201cwhat sort\u201d and a modified form of dapedon<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201ca soil.\u201d Actually, potapos<\/span><\/em> is a corruption of the earlier podapos<\/span><\/em> which meant, \u201cFrom what country?\u201d <\/span>Hence, potapos<\/span><\/em> is asking the question, \u201cWhat kind of people?\u201d but it is implying, \u201cAre you earthly or are you heavenly?\u201d<\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In light of the fact that the world will<\/strong> be judged by fire and all that remains of this earthly realm will go up in flames, we should focus our intentions on righteousness and holy living.<\/p>\n

I can remember years ago being in a business management class in which we were all trying to figure out what our real goal in life was to be. We were told to imagine our own funeral, and we were to write our own eulogy, saying all those things for which we wanted to be remembered. Although a really good exercise in helping a person focus on what\u2019s really the central driving ambition in life, it served primarily to help people focus on themselves and on what they wanted.<\/p>\n

All the earthly ambitions of everyone in that room, everything written down in those eulogies, every accomplishment, every accolade, and every monument erected in honor of someone in that room will be \u201clet loose\u201d and will burn up completely until there is nothing left but the smell of smoke.<\/p>\n

Jesus, in his sermon on the mount in Matthew 6:19-21<\/span><\/strong>, said this about earthly riches,<\/p>\n

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.<\/span> <\/span>But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.<\/span> For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter is saying essentially the same thing in today\u2019s verse. Each of us will stand before the judge of all mankind some day. Those who have rejected Him will stand condemned and will be cast into the lake of fire to be tormented eternally. We who have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior will stand in Christ\u2019s righteousness with our sins forgiven. However, we will still have our works judged, and those who have done God\u2019s bidding in this life will receive crowns as rewards for their faithfulness and service. Any who have accepted the salvation that was offered them in this life but who have squandered their time here in self indulgence and self satisfaction, will enter into glory with nothing to offer the King of Kings.<\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Will you be ushered into the glorious presence of the King or will you be cast into the lake of fire?<\/p>\n

If you are ushered into the presence of the King, will you have anything to offer Him?<\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2 Peter 3:11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives Truth to Learn We are either of the earthly family or the heavenly family. No one can be a member of both. Behind the Words The words \u201cwhat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[375,376,377],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-earthly","tag-heavenly","tag-treasure"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-gz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}