Who You Are in Christ – A Partaker of God’s Divine Nature

I’ve got some exciting news for you today. If you know Jesus Christ as Lord of your life, then you are a partaker of God’s divine nature.

Peter tells us this wonderful truth in his second epistle. In verses three and four of chapter one, he states:

3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Before you came to Christ, you were spiritually dead in your trespasses and sins. But Jesus made a way for you to receive His life when He died on the cross and rose again. He paid the penalty for your sin so that you could be forgiven and reinstated in a relationship with God.

When you accepted Jesus as your Lord many powerful things took place. All your sin was forgiven. You were proclaimed innocent before God and you were born again from above.

When you received Christ into your heart a miracle of a new creation took place within you and you became a new creation in Christ. The Holy Spirit of God made you alive in Christ and came to dwell within you.

The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

The first aspect of divine power in your life is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He’s there to give you life, counsel, wisdom, and strength to walk the Christian life.

Think about it. You have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in you. You’re not alone and you’re not without help to live life as God intends it to be.

God so longs to personal relationship with us. Many times in the Scriptures He speaks of being our God and walking in our midst. He did one better than that. He made us His temple and sent His Spirit to dwell in us.

You’re connected with every other believer through the Holy Spirit. The Bible picture you as being a temple of God and it also shows you connected with every other believer to be a temple of God.

The Fruit of the Holy Spirit

A second aspect of the divine power in us is called the fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is at work in your life to build the character of Christ. Sometimes we think that we have to generate out of our own selves the ability to be like Christ, but that isn’t God’s plan. He placed the Holy Spirit in you to be the very source of His life that would produce God’s fruit in your life.

The Bible speaks of the fruit of the Spirit in the life of a believer. Did you notice that it is the fruit of the Spirit. It is the Spirit in us that produces the fruit that flows out of your life.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

These nine wonderful fruits are by no means the limit of the work in of the Spirit in your life, but it clearly shows that God desires to make you partaker of His divine nature by working these fruits into your life through the working of the Holy Spirit.

You actually have the Spirit of God working in your life to transform you into the image of Christ. He does this from glory to glory, which means that step by step the Spirit is working in your life to make you like Jesus. Every time He does a work you become more like Him.

The Baptism with the Holy Spirit

A third way that God allows you partake of the His divine nature is through the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. Peter talked about us that we become partakers through the many precious and magnificent promises God has given us.

After Jesus rose again from the dead, He appeared to His disciples at various time over a forty day period. In that time He told them He would send upon them the promise of the Father. He said in Luke 24:49, “And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

In Acts 1:4-5 Jesus tells us what the promise is:

4 Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

And in Acts 1:8 He tells us why we need the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. He said:

Jesus wants us to receive the promise of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit so we can become partakers of His divine nature and spread the good news of the Gospel to all nations. God pours out the power of the Holy Spirit on us so that we will have His power to do His work on the earth.

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit

A final way God gives us His Divine nature is through the gifts of the Spirit. He gives us supernatural outpouring of the Spirit of God from our lives to others. God wants to touch people through each of us, so He manifests supernatural gifts through our lives.

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. 6 There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. 7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills

As we have seen, God has made us partakers of His divine nature by placing His Spirit in us, by transforming us into the image of Christ through the Fruit of the Spirit, and given us power through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and manifests His divine power through us with the Gifts of the Spirit.

Notice that every single one of these gifts is a manifestation of the Spirit. Not one of them is something you possess. He manifests as He desires through a willing vessel.

Thank the Lord that He has given you everything you need for life and godliness through His precious promises which allow you to be partakers of His divine nature.