Productive, efficient, fruitful and useful

Dearly Beloved, I trust this finds you well and bubbling in the Lord. 2 Peter 1v5-8 tells us about certain things that we as Christians need to develop; and we will be looking at these over the next couple of days. The Message Bible says “So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus.” The Amplified Version of verse 8 says “For as these qualities are yours and increasingly abound in you, they will keep [you] from being idle or unfruitful unto the [full personal] knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).” Amen.

2 Peter 3v18 tells us “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.” The Dakes concordance notes that “The Christian life is a growth. Every grace and blessing of the gospel is in seed-form and implanted in the newborn child of God (1 Pet. 1:23; Jas. 1:18). If these seeds are watered from heaven and cared for by the individual in conformity to the Word of God, they will grow to full maturity. No one or a dozen works of grace or anointings of the Spirit will make a person fully mature and beyond the growing stage of Christian experience. One must walk in the light as he receives knowledge and he will grow normally to maturity in Christ (1 Jn.1:7; 1 Pet. 2:1-8).”

Putting this together with 2 Peter 1v5-8, we are encouraged that by adding to the promises we have, and the faith that we have – virtue, godliness, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and love, and increasing in these things, the Bible tells us that we would not be ineffective and unproductive (NIV) in our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. In a sense, while you have come to know the Lord, by growing in these other things, that knowledge of Him won’t be unfruitful or ineffective.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, I thank You for this Word. Lord, help me to be diligent to grow in virtue, godliness, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and love in Jesus name, amen.