A Pretty Good List

I came across this passage from 2 Peter this morning that I wanted to share:

you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. -- 2 Peter 1:5-7.

Just so people know what they're reading, 2 Peter was written in the late 1st century or early 2nd century CE by someone who was likely a follower of Peter's (it's pretty clearly written after Peter was martyred in Rome). In both 1 and 2 Peter, the author lays out Peter's understanding of how Christians are to live and the promise that God gives the faithful. They're written as letters to the faithful.

Here, in 2 Peter 1, the author is giving the faithful instructions for how to resist the temptations of the world and focus on living lives devoted to God. As Lent continues and Easter nears, I think it is a good time to reflect on what we can do to keep ourselves grounded in God. We have to start at the beginning with love. What I admire most about this passage is that faith, though it comes at the beginning of the sentence, is the end product. It only exists when supported by goodness, which must be supported by knowledge, which is meaningless without self-control. . . .

The first step is love. Love develops into mutual affection (actual love for particular people and aspects of creation, rather than some theoretical love of others); this grows into godliness (what is more godly than to love God's creation?); moments of godliness weave together to result in endurance (I'm making that sound a whole lot easier than it is!); once we know how to endure, we learn to control ourselves. This control opens our eyes to knowledge (to the often-painful process of acquiring knowledge, but also to the essential need to refrain from judging knowledge superficially. Self-control allows us to learn with open minds instead of rushing to judgment in order to confirm what we already believe to be true). This type of open-minded knowledge is good (it's certainly better than the alternative!), and possessing it builds our faith in the One who created us and works for our reunion. The very process of faith reunites us with God, one another, and Creation.

So maybe take a couple of minutes and think about how you're doing in this process of faith. Pray about what you could be doing to strengthen your commitment to focus on God and live as God's created.

Love,

Becky