So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:14-16) Our faculties of perception need to be trained.  I've been reminded of this over the past few years as I've attempted to teach our boys how to ride their bikes.  Sure enough, my own driving instructor back when I was 15 said the same thing I find myself saying now.  "Your hands will go where your head goes."  In driving, of course, you need to learn to cut this connection so that you can check your blind spots without running someone off the road.  But for teaching kids to bike it is enough simply to say: "keep looking forward! Keep your eyes on the path!"   Peter used the word for this phrase "looking forward" twice in yesterday's passage and again in the beginning of today's.  From what Peter has earlier said about false teachers—it seems that not everyone was "looking forward" to Jesus coming again.  Instead, they were looking around with greed and lust at all the material satisfactions they could enjoy in this life.  Jesus didn't seem to be coming anytime soon, so they contented themselves with living in the moment, rather than keeping eyes fixed on the Christ who stood ever before them.   This remains an easy distraction for us all.  Jesus didn't come during our parent's lifetime, after all.  Nor in that of our grandparents nor any of the hundreds of years before them.  It is easy therefore to lose sight of the path—the direction that history flows.  It is easy to believe that the world we see is all there is.  And if that's the case—then we need to secure our own lives and resources, our own pleasures and purposes.  If there is nothing beyond this world then the meaning of this life has to be something we forge in the fires of our own authentic refinements.  Many people—Christian and otherwise—do exactly this.  But are they looking forward?  Are we? Peter has spent his letter addressing, accusing, and correcting this at times malicious diversion.  He has thumped the same theme over and over.  The scriptures are reliable.  Jesus is coming again.  And judgement comes with him: setting things right, making things whole, and ensuring justice and righteousness flow.  Remember, remember, remember and do not forget.  Keep looking forward!  Keep your eyes on the path! Finally here at the end now, Peter begins to assume that we've heard him.  "Since you are looking forward" he says, "peddle toward the prize."  At the beginning of the letter, we heard about the "everything" gifts God had given to equip us for the journey of living out his calling.  We were told then to add virtues to our faith.  Now Peter wraps it up with the encouragement to reconcile the living of our lives with the one who stands before us.  That "author and perfector of our faith" that the writer of Hebrews tells us to "fix our eyes on."  "Since you are looking forward," Peter writes, "make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him," that is—with the one we're looking to.   So where are your eyes?  Where your eyes go, your hands and energies in this life will go too.  Keep looking forward, and let the vision of Jesus shape your living. As you journey on, go with the blessing of God: Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master. Grow in the grace and understanding of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ. Glory to the Master, now and forever! Amen! (2 Peter 1:2; 3:18 MSG).  

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