Ok – I Get It, Now What? – 2 Peter 1:5-8

2 Peter 1:5-8: “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Have you ever been confronted with a situation where before you can move forward, first, you have to fully understand a fundamental truth or concept?  This is very common in the most basic aspects of life.  You can’t move on to more advanced math until you know your addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division tables.  You can’t write a story until you understand how to first write a correct sentence.  It’s a wonderful thing when the “light goes on”, and you can say to yourself, ‘I get it!’ I believe humans are wired to progress in their thought processes. Therefore, once you get the foundational point(s), it’s common to ask, “What’s next?”

So it goes in the realm of faith.  The Apostle Peter provides us an outline of the progression, or steps to maturity, in the Christian faith. To make it clear, he provides a series of progressive stages to follow to help us “stay the course”.  Notice the pre-requisite to the steps, “giving all diligence.” The Greek words for “all” and “diligence” display a complete and total effort – an earnestness – towards our approach to growing in our relationship with God.  He’s not suggesting this because we need to beg God to get closer to us – the strong admonition is because Peter knows better than most how easy it is to deceive ourselves as to how truly strong our faith is.

The first step forward after coming to faith in Christ is virtue. The Greek word for virtue in this verse is ‘arete’ which actually means manliness or valor; achieving an excellence that is praiseworthy and virtuous.  When you truly take in the level of God’s efforts to forgive you and redeem you, responding with a dedication to conducting your life to a higher standard is reasonable.  Figuring out how to do that, though, can be a challenge for most of us. God, though, doesn’t leave us in a void, and Peter directs us to where we can go to learn what it means to better conduct our lives – knowledge.  Specifically, he is speaking of the knowledge of God – found through studying the Scriptures.  The Bible was provided to us as a vehicle to come to know God’s character, His ways, and His promises. If we will take the time to read His Word, God will show us what it means to live a more excellent life.

The next step is an interesting one – self-control. What is implied in this step? There must be a risk of going out of control.  Knowledge is a great thing, but by itself it can become dangerous – it can puff up someone’s pride, and according to Proverbs 16:18, pride comes before destruction – a haughty spirit before a fall.  God is warning us that there needs to be restraints on the accumulation of our knowledge, so self-control is necessary.  However, I do not believe self-control is fully achievable without walking in the Spirit.  I say this because Galatians tells us that self-control is a fruit of (or a result of walking in) the Spirit.  What’s implied is that without our willful invitation of the Holy Spirit to direct our ways, self-control will be, at best, a struggle.

By establishing self-control in our lives, we then must prepare to persevere.  The fact that perseverance is a step to maturity is a clear inference that there will be a need to endure or be patient with situations or people who will go against what we are pursuing; in other words – persecution.  Jesus promised persecution because of the word [our faith in Him], so we need to be ready to withstand those who will attempt to tear down our faith.  As we begin to persevere and learn to stand up for God, we then are growing closer to living a more Godly life. Our faith-driven, courageous self-controlled knowledge of God begins to impact the way we deal with not only our lives but also those lives God brings into our lives.  We are becoming equipped to minister to others as God might minister – in the form of a brotherly kindness. Notice the progression of these building blocks – they begin with the internal – faith, virtue, knowledge, and self-control and then transition to the external with perseverance, godliness, and brotherly kindness.  Can you see the logic and the order of this?

So what is the conclusion of these steps to Christian maturity? Love. Is it surprising that so much foundation must be established before we can be useful and fruitful with our faith in Jesus Christ? It shouldn’t be because if we fail at any of these steps, we will be unable to love the way God loves us and seeks for us to love others as He does.  It seems like a lot, but we need to remember the lengths God went to in order to show His love to us.  If we get that, then the “now what” question of where to go with our faith is answered. Get it?

Isaiah 60:1

Oh, LORD, what darkness surrounds me.
How it oozes and seeps into my pores.
Then it slithers and threatens my mind
With the dread there will be much more.

My heart begins to quake and tremble -
Leaving me paralyzed with fading hope.
How could such a doom break through?
As if I’ve arrived at the end of my rope.

Suddenly a voice from heaven thunders
Tearing a hole in hopelessness’s roof.
Darkness’s lies crumble to their knees
Giving way to the Light and the truth.

“Arise, My child, for your light is here!
Why have you forgotten My presence?
Don’t you recall upon your confession?
That I instilled in you My holy essence.”

“The darkness and its grave were beaten
By My beloved Son’s death at Calvary.
When I resurrected Him with My power.
The Light of the World won the victory!”

“As for My unbelieving and lost creation -
The ones drowning in darkness and tears,
If they could only see what you believe,
My perfect love will cast out their fears.”

“So, don’t forget, My beloved possession.
You can arise and shine for I have come.
My glory will forever rise upon you
With the same power that raised My Son.”

“Shine My Spirit’s light who dwells inside
That will testify that My Word is true.
For light will always defeat the darkness
When they’ll see that it did so for you.”

Why Jesus Was Sent

God takes no pleasure in the death of any.
He wants all of His creation to repent.
To prove the truth of this passionate desire,
His only begotten Son to us was sent.

He looked at each of our worst moments
And our rejection of His holy existence.
From a heart of mercy and compassion,
He chose to take our sin death’s sentence.

Yet we still believe the deceits and the lies.
If He exists, He’s an unfair and angry judge.
When we reject the necessity of the cross.
We’re missing His greatest display of love.

What more powerful proof can we find?
For another to willingly lay down one’s life.
The only way to be reconciled to our Creator,
Was for His Son Jesus to be our sacrifice.

The fear of death was given a mortal blow.
His resurrection proving love never fails.
Imagine the guilt and shame of our past
Are forgiven and left on His cross’ nails.

Why won’t we choose to believe this truth?
Receive the free gift of His amazing grace.
If this is the only life that we have to live,
Does it feel anything like a heavenly place?

If there is more to live after our last breath,
Perhaps the cross makes a lot more sense.
To be given the promise of an eternal peace,
We’ll start to believe why Jesus was sent.

That God loves every life that He creates.
You’re no evolved ape, you’re no accident.
If you’ll take Jesus’ nail-pierced hands,
You’ll become a reason why He was sent.