When Peter exhorts every one of us to "Grow in Grace and Knowledge of the Lord", the focus is on Jesus, not ourselves.
Just as a tree sheds its old leaves to grow knew ones not through striving but through rest, so too every child of God grows in grace, is transformed from glory to glory by seeing Jesus, by identifying with His thoughts, His Hopes, with Himself.
He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13: 5), and nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8: 38-39)
God the Father even promises, through His Son, that He will make all our enemies our footstool (Hebrews 1: 13; 10: 13)
Paul invites us to reckon ourselves dead to sin (Romans 6: 11), to shame, to any form of guilt and condemnation through Christ (Romans 8: 1). We do not reckon ourselves anything as long as we insist on looking at ourselves and noting that we are not changing.
Paul is more concrete with the Colossians:
"1If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3: 1-4)
How can we reckon ourselves dead, yet not merely sit and do nothing?
Paul had answered that question prior in his same epistle to the Colossians:
" am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; 26Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: 28Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: 29Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." (Colossians 1: 25-29)
Christ lives in us! By His faith, we live (Galatians 2: 20-21), and we are invited to live our lives through Him (1 John 4: 9)
If we want to be transformed from glory to glory, we do not get their through our own efforts, but rather by submitting our bodies as a living sacrifice, that by renewing our minds to the Truth of God's Word, we can know God's will for us, and allow His Son to live through us. See Jesus in the Word, grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord, and you will change without even realizing it.
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