God’s Time Is Perfect

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Do you ever feel like God is slow to do what he says he will do?

“In his first letter, the apostle Peter writes largely about the relationship between holiness and hardship. In this letter, a follow-up to the previous one (3:1), he writes about the relationship between holiness and heresy—a ‘hardship’ in its own right in the early church as well as in the church today.”^[1]

The main point of 2 Peter is to encourage believers to grow in their faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ while standing firm against false teachers and anticipating the promised return of Christ. Likely written by the apostle Peter, the letter was addressed to Christians facing challenges from within the church due to heretical teachings that distorted doctrine and promoted immoral behavior.

“Although some have thought that those condemned in the letter were Gnostics, the many allusions to Hellenistic Jewish traditions suggest instead an overly Hellenized Jewish Christian setting.”^[2] After reaffirming that Christ is returning again, Peter says in 2 Peter 3:8-9:

⁸ Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. ⁹ The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

David Wheaton notes that “Peter gives two factors which explain why he is delaying such intervention as long as he likes: time is of no consequence to him and he is giving time for people to come to repentance.”^[3] While humans view time in a linear fashion, God is not bound by it. This explains why many Christians are prone to impatience and don’t realize that what feels like a long time to them is nothing to God.