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Growing in the Divine Life for a Rich Entrance into the Eternal Kingdom 78

God. We can even say that we are growing God. We are being constituted,
participating in His divinity, participating in His divine life and nature. And as
we participate, we are growing day by day. For us to grow, we need to have an
active cooperation in the participation in the life of God, so that we can grow
in this life. Lastly, as we enjoy Him, become Him, grow in Him, then we can
enter into God as the eternal kingdom. This kingdom is the realm of His rule.
We can also say that a kingdom is a totality of a life. Like when we talk about
the animal kingdom, we can say that all the animals that have the animal life
belong to the animal kingdom. They are born into that kingdom. Praise the
Lord! We are born with the life of God! We are actually in the God-kingdom.
This is wonderful! We were born into this kingdom because we were born
with the life of God.
As we come to these verses in 2 Peter 5-11, they show us development.
But let me read to you verse 5 again to see if we actually understand what the
verse is talking about. Second Peter 1:5 says, “And for this very reason also,
adding all diligence, supply bountifully in your faith virtue; and in virtue,
knowledge.” The first thing here is, “supply bountifully in your faith virtue.”
What does this mean? The way Brother Lee rephrased this, he said it this way,
“to supply virtue in faith.” How do we have this virtue? It is by the exercise
of our faith. As we exercise our faith, we will gain the virtues. This means
that when we say, “your faith virtue”, you exercise faith to develop your
virtues. You exercise virtue to develop your knowledge. You exercise your
knowledge to develop your self-control. You exercise self-control to develop
your endurance. You exercise your endurance to develop your godliness. You
exercise your godliness to develop your brotherly love. And you exercise your
brotherly love to be love.
When we come to these verses, the final goal of these developments is
love. In 2 Peter 1:7, there is a footnote on the word “love”. The love here is
different from our natural love. It is different from the brotherly love that was
mentioned before this word “love”. This love that we are talking about is the
agape love. Footnote 2 of verse 7 says,
“The Greek word is used in the New Testament for the divine
love, which God is in His nature (1 John 4:8, 16). It is nobler than
human love. It adorns all the qualities of the Christian life (1 Cor. 13;
Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:13-14). It is stronger in ability and greater in