Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Family, Parenting and Religion
Postured: Growing in the Character of Christ

Postured: Growing in the Character of Christ

Last updated on: November 5, 2026 at 7:53 am by Jeff McLain

0 Comments

Postured: Growing in the Character of Christ 2026-11-05T07:53:37-05:00 Jeff McLain

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash. Postured: Growing in the Character of Christ.

Life has a way of shaping us, often without our realizing it. The pressures we face, the disappointments we carry, and the things we desire can slowly change how we think, respond, and live. We may find ourselves becoming people we never intended to be. But what if we could be shaped by something different? That is exactly what Peter will get at in 2 Peter 1:3–11. In this passage, we find what it means to grow in a particular character, the Character of Christ, a character with characteristics that allow the way of Jesus to take deeper root in us and change the way we live in the world.

This is part of a blog series called POSTURED, appearing on Lead a Quiet Life on Patheos and shared with River Corner Church. In this series, we explore seven passages from letters Peter and Paul wrote to the early church. These seven ways explore how we can be differentiated, or “postured” differently, in the world around us. Each passage offers a posture that helps shape us into gospel-infused people who live, speak, and respond like Jesus.

So far, we have looked at what it means to live as foreigners and exiles and to do everything without grumbling or arguing. These reminders matter for our world today. Our goal isn’t to withdraw from the world, but to become faithful, fruitful witnesses of Jesus and his kingdom within it. In this installment, we turn to 2 Peter 1:3–11 and consider what it means to grow in Christ’s character.

2 Peter 1:3–11 Admits Life Hits Hard

Life hits hard. Sometimes, without even realizing it, life’s pressures, disappointments, failures, and struggles begin to twist and bend us into a different shape. We become defensive, discouraged, distracted, or even cynical because of the posture we take toward the world around us. We develop habits and attitudes that don’t reflect the people God has called us to be.

Life longs to posture us permanently into the shape it wants for us, and when it does, it leaves us ineffective and unproductive for the Kingdom of God.

On our own power, the hits will keep coming and reshaping us. However, living from a confident state of God’s divine power, empowered by God’s Spirit as participants in his divine nature, develops within us God’s character, posture, and attributes.

That is what I find at the core of 2 Peter 1:3–11.

That’s part of what Peter is addressing in these verses to the church that has been scattered in a really difficult and tense time. In a similar time, as readers of this passage, we are now called to live in this world from the power of the world to come—not allowing the pressures of this life to determine who we become.

God Has Given Us What We Need

Because of God’s grace and peace, which Peter says multiply in us, Jesus has given us divine power. An empowered way of living. That is what Peter is describing in this passage.

Peter does not begin with a list of things Christians need to accomplish, but rather a posture we take. It is as much about who we are becoming as what we do. Peter begins by reminding us what God has already provided. We cultivate a godly, postured way of living because God has already given us his power.

This describes what we may call a Spirit-filled way of living. Peter uses the word dunamis for God’s power. It is the pure, dynamic, miraculous, and unmatched power of who God is that has been granted to us. It has been granted to us in all things that pertain to life and godly living. This power extends into every aspect of our lives, whether mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, and so on. As we surrender the areas of our lives, the empowered divine power of God moves in, makes a home, cleans up, delivers, heals, and protects that part of who we are in Christ.

This empowered way of living comes through what Peter calls the knowledge of him. This knowledge is not just facts and information. It is a conscious, deepening understanding. It is an experience of knowing God through Jesus and being known by him. But it is not just an experience. It is also a calling on our lives: a calling to become participants in God’s promises, provision, and providence in the world around us.

Just as a home repair company may leave a sign in the yard to display its work, God is renovating our lives, and the evidence of his work becomes visible to the people around us. We have received grace so that we can extend grace. We have experienced transformation so that we can become agents of transformation. We have been rescued so that we can reach out to others.

Peter is not suggesting that as participants we become divine or like God ourselves. He describes participation in God’s nature through his promises, like a mirror reflecting or a window extending the reach of a sunray. We are recognizing that it is not us, but him, who has begun the good work in us and will see it completed for his glory.

God has provided these things through his own glory and goodness. His glory and goodness are meant to be displayed through our lives. Our lives become ambassadors of his kingdom, offering a visible expression of his glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:3–11: Participating in the Life of God’s Kingdom

By calling us to participate in the divine nature in 2 Peter 1:3–11., Peter describes two interconnected realities.

First, we participate in displaying God’s character, Spirit, and truth through our lives. As his life takes root in us, we become expressions of his goodness, reflecting his work of deliverance, healing, restoration, and making things right. Our lives become a visible witness to who God is and what he is doing in the world. This is the sign-in-the-yard reality.

Second, we participate in God’s eternal life and nature. This is not simply something we look forward to experiencing after death; it is a life that begins now and continues into eternity. Through Jesus, we begin experiencing the life of God’s kingdom here and now, while looking forward to its fullness yet to come.

Sometimes people notice when something has changed in us. They may not know exactly what it is, but they see a different quality in the way we respond, endure, and relate to others. In 2 Peter 1:3–11, Peter reminds us that this life comes from a source beyond this world, and people will notice in the same way. We are beginning to participate in the life of God’s coming kingdom, and that life begins to reshape us now.

Resisting the Corruption of the World

There is also a way of resistance in 2 Peter 1:3–11. Peter says this empowered, intimate, grace-filled understanding and participation has kept us from corruption. The word for corruption implies both being polluted and a hopeless reality of being perishable and destructible. On our own, we were hopeless. Now with Jesus, we have hope that brings eternal value. We have escaped the perishable nature of life not by luck or through our own power, but through God’s goodness and grace, displayed in the life, ministry, call, and cause of Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit’s transformation and healing. We are valued in him.

The corruption Peter describes isn’t something happening out there in the world that we can simply close off, hide from, and shun by withdrawing and avoiding. As James, the brother of Jesus, writes, each of us is lured away by our own temptations. Peter puts it in much the same way. It is connected to the wants, or the lusts, of our lives. Corruption is the way of the world, but it takes deep root in us. When we let our desires become the desires of the broken world around us, we are shaped by the wrong thing.

These desires can pull at us. When they win out, we become nearsighted and blind; that is what Peter says at the end of this 2 Peter 1:3–11 passage. We are cleansed from our sin, but we want a taste of what the world has. We forget who we are, and we go back into the mud like pigs. This is the human condition.

The more we remember what Jesus has done, the more we give space for his work to multiply in us, and the more our wants get in line. The more we focus on what we want compared with the world around us, the more we forget all the good things we have from God.

Gratitude helps us remember what is already ours in Christ, and that changes what we desire. When we lose sight of what we have received in Jesus, we begin to measure our lives by what the world has to offer. But in being effective and productive for the Kingdom, we find the anchor for what we truly want.

In 2 Peter 1:3–11, Peter also says that, because of God’s empowerment, we are learning to live uncorrupted in a world that is corrupted. We are learning to live unpolluted in a world that is habitually being polluted. Our lives have been cleaned and made different, and as a result, they now stand out in a world defined by its sin and brokenness.

Peter’s point is that we allow God to posture us differently. These acts of deliverance, calling, and healing are not something we do. Salvation is not something we earn or accomplish. Rather, God does it in his goodness and excellence. Our responsibility is to surrender to it and allow it to transform who we are and what we do, so our lives display the glory and excellence of God.

Cultivating the Character of Christ

Peter then lists in 2 Peter 1:3–11 the ways we participate in the divine nature and power of God. These qualities must take root in our nature. They are less a to-do list than benchmarks of who is winning more: the calling of Jesus on our lives or the desires of the world.

They are not an extensive list of all biblical virtues, but they express the ways and priorities in which a transformed heart works out in a grounded, new life as we grow more and more in the knowledge of Jesus.

We work out our faith with fear and trembling, surrendering our lives and building the disciplines that train us toward these virtues. This helps us grow in devotion, humility, witness, and godliness.

Peter calls them to be “postured” in these virtues:

Goodness: This is about allowing God’s goodness to take root in your character, speech, thoughts, and actions.
Knowledge: This is an invitation to keep learning and growing in your understanding of God so his truth shapes how you live.
Self-control: This is about becoming more Spirit-controlled, governing your impulses, emotions, and responses.
Perseverance: In this passage, Peter calls us to develop the resilience to endure life’s trials and bloom under pressure.
Godliness: This is about being “postured” through a way of cultivating a life of reverence and devotion to God, reflecting Christ from the inside out.
Mutual affection: Peter challenges us to invest ourselves in community to experience and practice God’s love within a community where we care for one another.
Love: The same love we have in community must overflow into the world around us. We must let spiritual maturity show in how we love others.

Four Ways to Live Postured Differently

I think that in 2 Peter 1:3–11, Peter’s words offer four ways we can be postured differently in the world around us.

Stand resiliently, knowing you are empowered. Peter reminds us, “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life” (2 Peter 1:3, NIV). We do not face the world’s pressures and corruption in our own strength. We stand in the power, promises, and provision of God.
Be intentional about your growth. Peter writes, “Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge” (2 Peter 1:5, NIV). The effort is ours and God’s. These are benchmarks, and we must know whether we are moving closer to them or farther away. Identify an area where you need to grow, and take an intentional step toward becoming more like Jesus.
Practice the character you are cultivating. Peter calls us to add “self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness” (2 Peter 1:6, NIV). We must live well even under pressure. We model staying power when we walk through hard moments. This can be formed in daily rhythms and practices that remind us of the character of Christ in our words, decisions, responses, and relationships.
Let your growth become love for others. Peter concludes, “and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love” (2 Peter 1:7, NIV). Mutual affection is cultivated in a community where we are known, encouraged, and challenged. But it doesn’t stay inside the community. The love we receive from God and one another becomes the love we extend to those around us.

A Life That Makes God’s Goodness Visible

We are not called simply to believe in Jesus or to make it through life. We are called to become increasingly like him. God has already given us what we need for that journey. So keep identifying where you can grow in goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. Don’t settle for a faith that remains unchanged.

When we live this way, we become resilient people who reflect Jesus’ character in how we live, respond, and love. We become like flowers growing through the cracks in difficult places—not because life has left us untouched, but because the life of God is taking root in us.

That is the postured life Peter is calling us toward: a life that makes the goodness of God visible to the world around us in 2 Peter 1:3–11.

As I have shared before, this is also a Sunday morning series we are working through at River Corner Church. You can watch our Sunday morning version here.

You can also listen to the audio.

If this post resonated, subscribe for future reflections, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. You can learn more about his journey to recover a rooted Christian way of life through the Lord’s Prayer, ancient habits, leading a quiet life, and simple Jesus communities online at JeffMcLain.com, the Lead a Quiet Life blog on Patheos, or the Discovering God Podcast.

General Christian

Family, Parenting and Religion

Home and Religion

Series: Postured

2 Peter 1:3–11

Growing in the Character of Christ

Postured

About Jeff McLain

Jeff McLain is a Doctor of Ministry Student on the Lord’s Prayer at Kairos University, Director of Pastoral Ministries at Water Street Mission, and a pastor at River Corner Church. Mobilized by 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, Jeff blogs about recovering a rooted Christian way of life through the Lord’s Prayer, ancient habits, leading a quiet life, and simple Jesus communities. You can read more about the author here.

Previous Post

November 3, 2026

Postured: Resources for Doing Everything Without Grumbling

Next Post

November 9, 2026 Postured: Know How to Answer Everyone

What does "Beersheba" mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Valley of Water House of the King Well of the Oath Blessed Field