INCREASING QUALITIES (part 2)

"Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control" (2Pt 1.5).

Faith comes from hearing the Word of God and is simply defined as "being fully convinced that God has the power to do what He has promised" (Rom 4.21). But faith, like milk to a newborn baby, is just the first of many steps to maturity. It is Peter who actually writes that Christians should crave God's Word like infants longing for liquid sustenance "so that you may grow up in your salvation" (1Pt 2.2). But if there's one thing I've learned about babies, it's that they will accept milk from anyone who offers it.

Surely, you've noticed that children, if they are hungry, will eat food given to them by anyone. So also, hungry Christians who lack the perishable skill of discernment, will accept the preaching of God's Word as truth no matter who presents it. Paul warns the Ephesians that if they do not get equipped in the work of God, they will "be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine" (4.14). Basically, immature Christians will believe anything that sounds true and then change their beliefs if what sounds true no longer seems to be so.

Immature Christians also do not "endure sound teaching but having itching ears they wil accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions" (2Tim 4.3). Basically, they have bountiful amounts of knowledge but it isn't buttressed by virtue or self-control, so they just find teachers who will agree with what they want to believe about God. So how do we increase from faith to godliness to love? Well, it takes one simple process.....

 

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