while today

Have you ever felt spiritually stagnant? Like you weren’t growing in your faith as you should be? Like you’re just going through the motions?

In 2 Peter chapter 1 we see a list of qualities that should be present in the lives of Christians. These qualities build upon one another and might be thought of as stair steps of spiritual growth. The apostle Peter writes, “Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love” (2 Peter 1:5-7 NASB95).If we will make every effort to supply these qualities in our faith, we will grow spiritually. Think of the beautiful places God will take us if we will supply these things!

These qualities should be present in our lives and increasing. As Peter continues, “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:8). Can you look back on your life over the past few years and say that you have been growing in knowledge?  In self-control?  Have you been growing in love?

And if the honest answer to that question is “No,” we must ask ourselves why we are not growing as we ought. What is the root cause? One might say it is because of a lack of diligence. That is a good and honest answer. But then the question becomes, why do I lack diligence? Why am I not putting forth the effort to supply these things?

The answer is in Peter’s next statement. “For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins” (2 Peter 1:9). If we lack these qualities, it means we have forgotten something. We have forgotten the cross. We have forgotten what our Lord Jesus has done for us. We have forgotten how God in the flesh became the man of sorrows. How He was mocked and spat upon and beaten. How He allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross. Why? So that we could be cleansed from sin, so that we could be made right in the eyes of God, and so that we would no longer be slaves of sin. If we become nearsighted and forget these precious truths, our diligence will wane and our growth will stall. But if we remember what Christ has done, our love for Him will propel us into a greater diligence.

May God help us to not lose sight of our purification from our former sins. And may God help us to ever be growing into His divine nature.