Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. (2 Peter 3:1-2) Remember what Peter said in chapter 1 about the importance of remembering?  Peter isn't so sure you do—so here come those memory words again!  Over the course of this chapter, more encouragements are given to shore up our memory and stave off our forgetfulness. In case you forgot you were reading 2 Peter—Peter is here to tell you.  And he doesn't only wish to tell you that he has written, but why.  These letters are "reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking."  He wants us to "recall" the scriptures—both Old and New Testaments such as they were in his day—and so be grounded again in a firm foundation from which a wholesome life in Christ can be imagined and lived.   The Christian life is a life of apprenticeship to Jesus as we come to know him more deeply through the Bible and conversations with him directly in prayer.  There is nothing new or fancy or complicated about it.  So Peter hammers home the same thing again and again.  "Recall the words" of the scriptures, he says. Of course, this reminder needs to be given, because it is so easy to take all that God has done for granted as we (again) talked about yesterday.  Precisely because we are "free in Christ," there is no whip on our back driving our obedience or coercing our response.  Instead comes an invitation: "remember and believe."  "Recall."  "Let your mind be stimulated to the wholesome virtues that are the gifts of Christ" as you remember all God has given you through these letters. Remember, remember, remember.  Peter drums away at the theme.  A broken record that repeats the things we already know over and over is no sin, because knowing something in the deep ways of habit and muscle memory takes exactly this: time, attention, and repetition.  So today, if you've already forgotten the list of virtues to add to your faith—go back and read it again.  Start right at chapter 1, verse 1 and recall again what you already know: the "everything" that God has given us to make his calling in our lives sure. Against the false teaching we heard about in the previous chapter, ultimately what Peter offers here in these reminders is the ability to come back to ourselves—to remember what we have known, to return to our first love, and think again on what we have first believed.  The world is full of distractions that put us to sleepy forgetfulness.  This letter comes to us as the whisper that awakens prodigal daughters and sons from their sleepwalking to recall the home of the Father with its lavish gifts and place of belonging.  It is the invitation to come home. 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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