9 The LORD is not slow concerning HIS PROMISE, as some regard slowness, but is being PATIENT toward you, because He does not wish for any to PERISH but for all to come to REPENTANCE. 10 But the DAY OF THE LORD will come like a thief; when… the earth and EVERY DEED DONE on it will be LAID BARE… (therefore) WHAT SORT OF PEOPLE SHOULD YOU BE, CONDUCTING YOUR LIVES IN HOLINESS AND GODLINESS, 12 while WAITING FOR and HASTENING THE COMING OF THE DAY OF GOD? … According to His PROMISE, we are WAITING for new heavens and a new earth, in which RIGHTEOUSNESS truly resides. 14 Therefore, DEAR FRIENDS, since you are WAITING FOR these things, STRIVE to be found AT PEACE, WITHOUT SPOT OR BLEMISH, when you COME into HIS PRESENCE. (2 Peter 3:9-14)

The Lord’s preparation of the Church is one of the most overlooked, New Testament dynamics that is (day by day) impacting the people of God right now. Whether we see it or not, the truth is, the closer we get to the return of Jesus, the more the heart and the collective mind of the Bride is being refined to both understand and champion the reign of our King!

Jesus is not coming to “take us home”. If we’re in Christ, we’re already home! He’s coming to rule and reign on the earth, WITH HIS BRIDE IN GLAD-HEARTED CELEBRATION of the way He administrates His Kingdom. 

Right now, the Church is still “working the issues out” in our collective thinking. Our narratives are not filled with appreciation for the ways of our King. We don’t esteem the values of meekness, holiness, patience, and mercy-giving the way our King does. In fact, we count much of what He wants to work into our world as foolish, unpractical, and/or too religious. Where Jesus calls us to “serve”, we want to dominate. Where Jesus calls us to “pray”, we want to rush to action with human power. Where Jesus wants to aim at relationship, we want to build laws and structures. This disconnection from Jesus’ mind is what both Peter (here in 2 Peter 3:14), and Paul (in Ephesians 5:26,27) call “spots, wrinkles, and blemishes”. This is where the Bride is operating unlike Christ – where we are not Christlike!

So, how does the Lord bring us into like-mindedness? How does He conform us to His image?How does He cultivate both an understanding and appreciation of the ways of His leadership?

He shapes us by employing two living and active realities. The first are the affairs of 200ish nations, and the pressure points in our own lives. These are actually “grinding bearings” that the Lord uses to drive us to Himself. Where the answers are “out of our reach”, and “beyond our under-standing”, He nonetheless calls us to bring the tension points to Him, in both humility, and honesty. This means that we don’t allow other players to become the primary “shapers” of our narrative. It means that we bring what we see, what we know, and what we feel, into the “tent of meeting” with Him, and allow Him to illuminate our minds, and our hearts about both the facts of the storylines, and the issues they create in our own lives. He may or may not want to tell us the details about the nefarious activities of globalists. But He will most certainly want to talk to us about how these true or false reports are shaping our trust in Him, and our love toward others. Make sense?

The second living and active reality that He’s using to shape the Bride is His own Word. 

Paul writes: “He (Jesus) sanctifies her, and cleanses her by THE WASHING OF WATER WITH THE WORD, that He might present to Himself the Church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:26-27)

Jesus uses both the crises in our world, and our daily, disciplined commitment to engage Him in prayerful dialogue with His Word, and in this kinetic mixture, He shows us how He leads, how He redeems, how He analyzes, how He rewards, and how He purges humanity, and the human spirit. And then He calls you and I, His Bride, to agree in prayer with Him about the ways and the intents of His government.

It’s in this turbulent forge that our Bridegroom King forms and purifies our thoughts, responses, attitudes, countenance, and will. As we bring our outrage, passivity, temptations, and promises in the context of these worldly, national and personal crises into His courts, with truthfulness, a spirit of yieldedness, a dash of expectation, and a will that is prepared to give Him the gift of repentance, He is faithful to remove the impediments (the spots, wrinkles, and blemishes) so that His authority can freely work in, and through our lives. This is how we, the Bride, are conformed to His Image. This is what it means to be aligned to the “true righteousness” (v.13) that He will manifest on the earth when the fulness of His Kingdom comes. We do this by faith, now, in anticipation of it fully coming when He comes. And this is, according to 2 Peter 3:12, (wonder of wonders) how we “hasten the coming” of that Day – His Day – when He rules in our physical presence!

Until that Day comes, 2 Peter 3 tells us to “wait” three times! This is an exhortation to
a.) abide in, and not lose touch with this truth,
b.) to walk in growing patience and peaceable confidence in the Lord, and what He is accomplishing, and to
c.) give ourselves to these conforming dynamics with abandon. 

However, the Kingdom of God is always a paradox. In the context of patiently “waiting”, v.14 also charges us to “strive”. (This paradox keeps us from turning the dynamics of the Lord into a math equation – and keeps us close, and reliant upon the nimble, intimate, breath-by-breath leadership of the Spirit.) It is by the Spirit that we “strive” toward coming to the place of “peace” with the Lord’s Bridal purification process. We are in His more than sufficient Hands. We belong to Him. We are in His care. He knows how to get ahold of us. He has our number. He knows how to call us out. He isn’t perplexed about how to bring you, your family, your Bible-study group, your community, and your nation into agreement with His ways. v.14 is the Spirit’s loud encouragement to “TRUST THE KING’S PROCESS!” He will bring us forth, into His Presence, without “spot” or “blemish”; purified; like a sacrificial lamb; ready to be offered up to Him; wholly yielded to His majestic reign.

This is His goal: that we come forth, by His power, united to Him, and each other, loving Him and His ways with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. (Mark 12:30)

This has massive implications for HOW WE “DO CHURCH”. It underscores the vital necessity that we become a people of daily, reliant PRAYER. WITHOUT BEING MUCH IN PRAYER THE BRIDE WILL NEITHER BEHOLD NOR YIELD OUR HEART AND OUR WAYS TO THE LORD’S REFINING WORK. NOR WILL WE LEARN TO WALK IN THE AUTHORITY OF HIS DIVINE ORDER.

This brings us to the other side of the coin. And it is the reason that spurs the apostle Peter to write these injunctions in the first place. Should we neglect, and/or withdraw from Jesus’ capable, prayerful, purifying process; should we instead, give ourselves to spiraling conspiracies, spouting our own opinions, -becoming rigid in our carnal thoughts, we will not come forth in mature love. We will actually come forth with a mutant love – shaped by our world, the devil, and our own corrupt soul. Perhaps, (or perhaps not) filled with “Christian-sounding” rhetoric – but no substance, and no fruit.

When we neglect Jesus’ prayerful, purifying process, and instead, give ourselves to spiraling conspiracies, opinions, and rigid carnal thoughts, we will not come forth in mature love. we will come forth with a mutant love.

The wretched truth of the matter is, when we refuse to give ourselves to His ongoing refining process, we are in essence saying to Jesus: “WE REALLY DON’T LOVE YOUR RULE AND REIGN in our world. We would rather continue to have our own way, under our own power, than have You remove the SPOTS and BLEMISHES from our hearts… We’d rather You NOT do what You want to do to manifest Your vibrant RIGHTEOUSNESS through our lives.”

This is the spirit of antipathy. This is the spirit Peter calls us to “strive” against. This posture will produce endless enmity (and never “PEACE”) in our lives. And, truth-be-told, it is the sentiment, and slant that accounts for SO MUCH of the hostility in the Church today.

Beloved, the Lord is not relenting. He will not let us sleep-walk through the fires that He has kindled in our world. He is a holy-disturber of our “false peace” Who is making every provision for us to be aligned to Himself, in joyful unanimity with His Kingdom.

Let’s go into the place of prayer, and wholly give ourselves to His refining process. Let’s hasten the return of our King!

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JSB • December 12, 2025