Four Exhortations to the “Beloved” (2)—Be Not Ignorant - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

But let not this one thing be hidden from you, beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord does not delay His promise, as some account of delay, but is longsuffering towards you, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:8-9

Four Exhortations to the "Beloved" (2)—Be Not Ignorant
God does not want His dear children, His beloved, to be in the dark. That is the meaning of today's verse. "Let not this be hidden from you"; the word "ignorant" (in kjv) means "hidden" or "to be unaware" about something. God loves His children too much to leave them floundering in abject ignorance; that's why He addresses them as "beloved"; they are His loved ones.

There is "one thing" that God especially would not have us to be ignorant about: that the apparent delay of Christ's coming is not really a delay at all; that is only how men view it. The wonderful and compelling fact is that "the Lord does not delay His promise" (v. 9). He does not want us to be like the "evil servant" who says, "My Lord delays to come" (Mt. 24:48).

First, "one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." God does not reckon time as we do; His perspective is much different. Peter is actually quoting Psalm 90:4 here; this psalm is looking at the brevity of man's life in contrast to Jehovah who is "from eternity to eternity" (Ps. 90:2). Man is like the grass that grows up in the morning and is cut down in the evening (vv. 5-6).

Second, God is working out His purpose of grace in calling sinners to Himself. The Lord's longsuffering should never be understood as His toleration of evil in the world, but rather as evidence of His grace in saving sinners.

Brian Reynolds