by Terry Shearer, Executive Director Australia
I’m sure that most of us have played with those cheap plastic toys that wind up and bounce on the spot. Often it’s a kangaroo that bounces or a puppy that flips over or even a set of teeth that can chatter away. With a few winds they just keep bouncing away on the same spot without ever really going anywhere.
Sometimes, life can feel like that as a Christian – being stuck in the same spot. Perhaps we’re stuck in the same sins, or perhaps our Bible reading has stalled, or maybe our serving in church has turned stale and that first kindling of joy and passion for Christ has lost its lustre over the months and years.
Sadly, many Christians seem to be happy to stay in the same spot. They are fine drinking spiritual milk for infants, not growing to be mature followers of Christ (Hebrews 5:12-14). I say “they”, but of course, all of us can be like this sometimes. We are like the up-to-the-minute gadgets we own – the camera, computer or phone. Most of us only use limited functions of these, not using them to their full potential, because we just don’t realise what they are fully capable of doing. And perhaps, we’re quite content with that.
The problem is, that’s just not who we are made to be and who we are called to be in Christ. God has saved us by his astonishing grace. As Peter puts it in the passage I want to highlight here, we are given the gift of “participating in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). We are given the gift of being adopted into God’s family!
That means we are then called to take on our new and wonderful family resemblance and grow up in Christ. Now because we can trust that God is our good Father, we can trust that He knows what’s best for us. We could stay bouncing in the same spot, but God knows that through growing in Christ we’ll actually find more joy and contentment than if we stayed still.
So the question is, how can we be eager and grow in Christ?
Well, I’d like to highlight a few things from a passage that I often turn to when I feel like I’m stuck in the same spot: 2 Peter 1:1-11.
Peter’s encouragement to be eager
In this passage, Peter wanted to remind and motivate his readers to continue to develop their Christian character by encouraging them to increase their knowledge of God and to continue to grow in Christ. The key verse is verse 10: “Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall…”
The word “eager” is a really important word and it appears in verse 5 as well. It can also be translated as zeal, haste or effort. Now, as soon as we read that word there is a danger to be aware of. When we talk about growing as a Christian, it’s easy to dive in at verse 5 and look at the practical things we can do to grow as a Christian. But that’s not the place to start, because that would be starting with our own effort.
Peter starts elsewhere – with God’s effort and the gifts He gives us.
Gifted with everything we need
In verse 3 he writes: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.”
All of us who know Christ have everything we need to handle life and manifest godliness. What a reminder! We do not make ourselves Christian. It is the action of God, by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, who gives us new life. We also can’t make ourselves grow as Christians. We do not grow through our own grit and willpower or through our own strength. Instead, God gives us everything we need to grow.
How to be eager
After reminding us of how God has gifted us with all the things we need to grow, Peter then helps us to see how we can live out our full potential, to keep growing from when we were first saved.
What does an eager, growing Christian look like?
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).
Peter is calling us to action in these verses about how to live a fruitful life in Christ. Now the order of these virtues doesn’t really matter. They are like a recipe, they all go together, working together for the right result. But while the order doesn’t matter, it probably was quite deliberate of Peter to start the list with faith and end it with love.
We received faith when we first believed. We must continue in faith. We are unable to add any of these virtues in our own strength, we must continue in faith trusting that God has given us everything we need to grow. Peter ends with love. In a way, love could summarise all these things that we are to grow in as we become more like our loving Father and lovingly serve our adopted family.
In between faith and love, Peter encourages us to grow in quite a few different yet related things. To summarise each briefly:
Goodness – just as God is good (2 Peter 1:3), we, too, are called to goodness. Goodness can be seen in our thoughts, words and deeds. Do we mirror God’s goodness in being generous, in living a life that is good? It’s a difficult thing to describe, but I’m sure we all know Christian brothers and sisters who we would describe as ‘good’ people who we would like to imitate.
Knowledge – we are to grow in knowledge, and based on 2 Peter 1:2, it would seem sensible to say that this is knowledge of God. It always feels like the same message but Bible reading and prayer are obviously integral to growing in the knowledge of God. The context for Peter’s letter is false teaching and this seems a very pertinent point: are we interested in God’s view of things or are we being misinformed by the values of the world?
Self-control – this keeps us from being shaped by the world rather than God. We are all tempted and I know I have to be careful about what I’m watching, what I’m listening to and what desires I let shape me. As we grow in Christ, it is important to let God shape our desires.
Endurance – we face so many trials, sufferings, obstacles and stresses in this life, but God calls us to persevere through them and we can trust that He will get us through.
Godliness – you could say that this is a general awareness of God in every aspect of life. Godliness grows out of being deeply conscious on a daily basis of our relationship with Christ.
Mutual affection – God has adopted us into His united family so this means helping one another, loving one another and treating one another like members of one’s family.
A rich welcome
I’ll end where Peter ends: with the promise and reward that growing in Christ brings.
“Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11).
Isn’t the promise of being an eager Christian so worth it?! We are given everything we need to take on the family resemblance and grow in Christ and one day we will receive a rich welcome into our Lord’s Kingdom. So let us encourage one another to stop being like those wind-up toys, just bouncing about in one spot, and instead be eager to grow to maturity in Christ as God works in us.
As I’ve been reading through 2 Peter, I’ve found the 2 Peter Journey Through Series booklet really helpful. If you’d like to study 2 Peter in more detail, you can read an online version here.
If you’d like a physical copy of the booklet, please contact us at request.au@odb.org
