2 Peter 3.18
“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”
The change that Jesus effects in your life has three parts:
- The Lord has changed you positionally.
- The Lord is changing you progressively.
- The Lord will change you perfectly.
Today let’s consider #2.
2) The Lord is changing you progressively. Once you have received forgiveness and have been justified through Christ, the process of spiritual growth begins. This is progressive transformation and change, and it is empowered by the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
We must always remember that progressive transformation in Christ is a process of spiritual growth that we must actively pursue. We must put forth faith-driven effort in order to grow and mature spiritually.
“Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1.5-8)
This passage communicates fundamental principles about spiritual growth that every Christian needs to understand. The message is that we must take disciplined action in order to build specific attributes into our life. We are to “make every effort,” Peter says, because the Lord’s “divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” God has acted and given us his blessings and power, now in response to what God has done for us, we must take action in order to build specific attributes into our life.
Here is the list of attributes:
Virtue: We must do the work to build the qualities of a Christlike character into our life.
Knowledge: We must do the work to understand what the Christlike virtues are, why they are important, and how to apply them to daily life and work.
Self-control: We must build discipline into our life in order to consistently practice the virtues in response to specific situations, and we must build the discipline to say no to the impulses of the old nature.
Steadfastness: We must be persistent and we must persevere to do this repeatedly and consistently over time. Also, we must build the strength and courage to stand strong in the face of adversity.
Godliness: We must do the work to display the fruit of the Spirit that glorifies God.
Brotherly affection: We must do all of this in fellowship and community with other believers.
Love: We must make sure that all of our efforts are motivated by love for God and for others.
Again, it’s vitally important that we are exceptionally clear: This 2 Peter passage instructs us to “make every effort” to build these attributes into our life. Still, and this is critical, we cannot do it without a close, intimate relationship with God. The power to make every effort comes from the Lord. We abide in him and we strive. We have faith and we work. We trust and we labor.
If you are not making every effort, you are making a mistake. If you are making effort but not trusting God, you are also making a mistake. The message of scripture is this: Here is what God has done, and here is what you must do in response to what the Lord has done. Because we believe in Jesus, and because he has blessed us so richly, we have a lot of work to do.
Withhold no part of your life from the process of change. Leave no part of your life untouched by the Spirit’s power of transformation. Let’s get busy and do the work!
“Train yourself in godliness.” (1 Timothy 4.7)
