His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature,^– 2 Peter 1:3-5

Something keeps telling me that God’s promises are meant to be more than a distant vision, more than a beautiful work of the heavens that we can only gaze on from a distance and admire. Something tells me his promises are more than ideology but are intended to be realized.

Some of God’s promises seem this way to me at times. They are quite wonderful and extraordinary. They stand out like a bright shining star placed high in the night sky above me and captivate my attention. My eyes keep coming back to them, to enjoy them, study them and take them in; but as beautiful and as real as they are, that is as far as my possession seems to come. I have yet to pull them down from the heavens and make them mine. They are too far away, too good to be true, outside my realm, outside my reality, but always within my vision high above my head calling me to look up.

This is the way these verses initially struck me. They appeared as great truths but seemed too high and too extraordinary for me to grasp, I could only gaze and admire them from a distance, but never quite possess them.

For all things are you …all are yours and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. – 1 Cor. 3:21-23 For his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence… 1 Peter 1 :3

Can you grasp the truth that all things are ours already? All we need to have, we already have available to us through Christ. “In every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge…so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end”, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” (1 Cor. 3,5; Luke 15:31)

God’s promises are not just beautiful truths to be wished upon, dream about and admired from a distance. They are extraordinary, but then again so is He so what else are we to expect from Him? As an extraordinary God, he offers us extraordinary gifts that we can never hope to obtain by our own efforts. These gifts are as far outside the reach of this world as He is. But to us, to those who belong to Him, they are within our reach as He is within our reach. His promises to us are as close to us as He is, for they are to be found in Him who dwells within us.

So how does one lasso the heavens and draw them near to grab hold of? It sounds like stuff fairy tales are made of doesn’t it? But we don’t have to. For as Romans says:

But the righteousness based on faith says, "Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’" (that is, to bring Christ down) or "’Who will descend into the abyss?’" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); – Romans 10:6-8

Jesus is the fulfillment of every promise given to us by God and he is already near us, in our mouths and in our hearts. When I look up and see a promise that seems too great, too far away for me to grasp and realize in my life, I only have to look to Jesus and remember how God made his extraordinary promise flesh that he might dwell among us within our reach so that his promises are fulfilled in our lives already. God’s great promises have been grounded, there is no need for me to wish or dream for their fulfillment to take place in my life any longer. In Christ, they are fulfilled.

In Christ, I already possess the love, the patience, the humility, the courage and a strength that I have been begging God to create in me.   These attributes are not separate from Him or given apart from Him. If I have Him dwelling in me, then I have all his riches that are found in him dwelling in me too.

This is the extraordinary and great promise that I am able to cling to and possess as my own.