Adding to Your Faith
Adding to Our Faith
2 Peter 1:3-11
When we get saved God doesn’t remodel the old life. He builds an entirely new one. We have a new foundation. Faith and Grace. We have a new framework. God’s Divine Power, His Dynamic Promises and new nature as a Delivered Partaker of the Divine Nature. (2Co 5:17) “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
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Now God wants us to add on the doors and the cabinets and the pictures, etc.
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But even these are placed on a framework provided by God.
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Our diligence to do this work is dependent on the divine power God supplies. 2 Peter 1:3, 5
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Our faith to proceed along amid trying times is dependent on His dynamic promises. v. 4,5
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Our virtue, excellence that we begin the work with is hinged upon the new nature, the Divine Nature that we have become partakers to. v.4,5
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Now we are to continue building. The work is not done. As a matter of fact, the work is never done. If we stop building, we stop growing spiritually. To stop working on these things in our life is tantamount to “lacking” these things in our life. (2 Peter 1:9) There is always water pouring out of the bottom of the bucket so we need to keep filling it from the top. We are always expending spiritual energy to resist temptation and to serve others so we need to add new energy.
We are building on a foundation of grace and faith. Grace is God’s favor to us. We are building on a faith. God moves with grace toward us when we exercise faith in Him. (Heb 11:6) “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”
The framework is solid. We have God’s divine power. God’s Dynamic Promises and we are Delivered Partakers of a new nature. Everything we nail to the framework or add to the framework is solidly placed for eternity.
It is a work that must be carried out with diligence therefore it necessitates Divine Power. It is a work that proceeds by faith therefore it is crafted upon God’s Dynamic Promises. It is a work requiring virtue, moral courage and excellence so it is stabilized upon the new nature we possess having been delivered from corruption and made partakers of the divine nature.
So we continue to add to this structure of spirituality we call the Christian life. “Add” meaning to lavishly outfit our life with…
We are to lavishly outfit our virtuous life with…
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Knowledge, 2 Peter 1:5
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True wisdom, by which your faith will be increased, and your courage directed, and preserved from degenerating into rashness. Adam Clarke
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practical discrimination of good and evil; intelligent appreciation of what is the will of God in each detail of practice. JFB
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2 Peter 3:18
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Lehman Strauss in his devotional studies on Galatians and Ephesians points out that human philosophy says….”know thyself.” However, Jesus said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3). To know oneself is important. But the greatest thing in all the world is to know God personally and to know that one shall live with God forever. God and eternal life are the summits of knowledge. It is better to know that one shall never die, than to know all there is about oneself and then lose that knowledge at death.
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(Php 3:8) Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
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Temperance, 2 Peter 1:6
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Self-control; holding the passions and desires in hand. See 1Co_9:25.
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(Pro 25:16) Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.
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The Greeks believed there were four states of self-control.
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Passion has been entirely subjugated to reason.
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Reason is entirely subjugated to passion.
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Reason fights passion, but passion prevails.
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Reason fights passion, but reason prevails. The Self controlled life.
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What we are hoping for is a Spirit controlled life. We know that the flesh fights against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. We yield to the Holy Spirit. (Gal 5:1617) This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
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Our self control comes from God control.
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Patience, 2 Peter 1:6
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Steadfastness, called the queen of virtues.
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Cicero defines it as “the voluntary and daily suffering of hard and difficult things, for the sake of honor and usefulness.”
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“It is not that the righteous man must be without feeling, although he must patiently bear the things which afflict him; but it is true virtue when a man deeply feels the things he toils against, but nevertheless despises sorrows for the sake of God.” Didymus of Alexandria
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“Patience isn’t just to accept and endure; there is always a forward look to it.” William Barclay. Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. (Heb 12:2) “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
- The great New England preacher Phillips Brooks was noted for his poise and quiet manner. At times, however, even he suffered moments of frustration and irritability. One day a friend saw him feverishly pacing the floor like a caged lion. “What’s the trouble, Mr. brooks?” he asked. “The trouble is that I’m in a hurry, but God isn’t!” Haven’t we felt the same way many times?
- Hebrews 12:1 tells us to “run with endurance” the race set before us. George Matheson wrote, “We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet there is a patience that I believe to be harder — the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: it is the power to work under stress; to have a great weight at your heart and still run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily tasks. It is a Christ-like thing! The hardest thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in the sickbed but in the street.” To wait is hard, to do it with “good courage” is harder! Our Daily Bread, April 8.
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We ought to continually seek to add more virtues to our faith. We have a solid foundation to work with. We can trust in God’s promises, depend on God’s power and know that this is possible because we are new creatures.
So add to your faith virtue, moral excellence. And lavishly outfit that virtue with knowledge. Learn more about God and his Word. Add to that knowledge temperance or self control and to self control patience or steadfastness.
When we bring our lives under the control of the Holy Spirit, then, we grow and mature as Christian and see the spiritual progress we desire.