2 Peter 1: God took the first step to rescue us from this corrupt world. He has granted us His power, revealed to us true knowledge, and spoken to us great promises. He has done all this for a reason: that we might participate in His own nature and reflect His own life. But we are not passive observers of God’s saving actions. We must receive His grace, grow in knowledge, and join Him in this work of redemption.

⁵ To achieve this, you will need to add virtue to your faith, and then knowledge to your virtue; ⁶ to knowledge, add discipline; to discipline, add endurance; to endurance, add godliness; ⁷ to godliness, add affection for others as sisters and brothers; and to affection, at last, add love. ⁸ For if you possess these traits and multiply them, then you will never be ineffective or unproductive in your relationship with our Lord Jesus the Anointed; ⁹ but if you don’t have these qualities, then you will be nearsighted and blind, forgetting that your past sins have been washed away. ¹⁰ Therefore, brothers and sisters, work that much harder to confirm that God has called you and claimed you. If you do this, then you will never fall along the way; ¹¹ and you can be sure that you will be richly welcomed into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King.

 

I think we often think we go to the altar and get saved and go to church regularly.. we serve in a ministry... we let go of drinking or some of the outward sins... whatever they may have been.. and we are good... this is how we become judgmental... we forget that we still are not where we should be... Peter tells us just how much more there is do be changed and transformed...

faith... then virtue... then knowledge.. then discipline.. then endurance.. then godliness.. then affection... then love...

 

when I look at this list of qualities I need to have.. I see how short I am from where God will take me eventually... Peter goes on to say that if we don't have these qualities we are ineffective and nearsighted... and I would say in many ways I am these things...

 

strange how we think we have arrived.. then Jesus opens our eyes to see we are still just walking up the road.. thankfully.. we are walking toward Him and no longer backward!! but we have too far to go to become self righteous and judgmental now............