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Growing in the Divine Life for a Rich Entrance into the Eternal Kingdom 79

capacity than human love (Matt. 5:44, 46), yet a believer who lives
by the divine life (v. 3) and partakes of the divine nature (v. 4) can
be saturated with it and express it in full. Such a love needs to be
developed in brotherly love to govern it and flow in it for the full
expression of God, who is this love. Faith can be considered the seed
of life, and this nobler love, the fruit (v. 8) in its full development.
The six steps of development in between are the stages of its growth
unto maturity.”
What Peter is talking about in these verses is our need to develop and
grow step by step, stage by stage. Starting from the seed of life, which is faith,
we can reach maturity, so that we can participate in the kingdom life in the
millennium. If not, then we will still participate in the kingdom in the new
heaven and new earth. Today, I hope that we would all participate very much
in this divine nature so that we can develop step by step until we are mature to
enter into the kingdom to be co-kings with our Lord.
We should also consider what we mean by “divine nature”. What do we
mean when we say that we need to participate in the divine nature? The divine
nature is simply what God is. Brother Lee said, “we can enjoy the divine nature
by living the divine life. We live in the divine life by gaining all those great
promises that the Lord has given us.” That is why before this portion, it talks
about these great promises. By availing ourselves of these great promises,
we can live in the divine life, then we can participate in the divine nature. It
seems that we are talking about two different things, but actually, the divine
life and the divine nature are inseparable. In Revelation, in the New Jerusalem,
there is a golden street. Gold is the divine nature of our God. In the middle of
the golden street is the river of water of life. This is the divine life. When we
are walking in the divine nature, we will actually enjoy the divine life. These
two things cannot be separated. That is why we always say that we enjoy
the divine nature by living the divine life. We live the divine life by availing
ourselves of the great promises of the Lord. These promises have already been
given to us. What we should do is to pray to the Lord. We need to pray, “Lord,
we need all these exceedingly great promises so that we can enjoy Your divine
life so that we can participate in Your divine nature.”