Fruitful and Effective
It’s possible to know the right thing to do and yet not do it. Knowledge does not determine right choices, but it is necessary to make the right choice. Thus, prompting the question, what are you going to do with the knowledge you have?
The Lord speaks to us in many ways. Through nature, with a still small voice, through a friend, in prayer, through His Word – just to name a few. In my quiet time the other morning, I asked the Lord for a verse to look into and 2 Peter 1:5 came to mind. Not knowing what I’d find, I turned flipped the pages and the riches of it and its surrounding verses blew my mind.
It’s “funny” how a seemingly random reference can be the exact thing you need to hear (almost as if God was speaking to you…). In this clump of verses, Peter is talking about the effectiveness of our faith. He says, “make every effort to supplement 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” (2 Peter 1:5-7).
Peter’s exhorting the church not just unto faith, but of the importance of supplementation. There are ways to live that ought to support and nurture the truth we believe in. Just reading the above list is like a refreshing sip of water. To live a life that reflects those qualities, the thought fills me with peace.
The verse proceeding is what ultimately caught my attention. Peter continues with, “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. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins” (2 Peter 1:8-9).
Peter is giving us a very real warning that it is possible to live with the knowledge of Jesus and not only be unfruitful and ineffective but to present as one still blind, unaware, and unchanged by the truth of the Gospel.
See friend, what you know is of importance. What’s of greater importance is the question of how is what you know changing you? I could know the truths of the laws of gravity and yet still jump of the roof thinking I’d fly, but really what that would show is my desire to fly blinded me from the truth of gravity that I knew.
Right before these verses, Peter talks about escaping the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire (v.4). Peter’s charging us not to forget what we were saved from. If we do, we’ll go right back to it – like a dog returning to vomit.
Let me ask you, do you feel you’ve been stagnant in your faith lately? Return to Peter’s list, pick up the practices of love in your daily life. Put on kindness and self-control in partnership with the Lord. God’s in the business of shaping us after Him to be effective and fruitful for the Kingdom. He will be with you, He will show you the way, but He will not force you. Walk in these things. Supplement your faith to keep you from presenting any sings of unfruitfulness or ineffectiveness. The world needs you to live after what you know to be true of the Gospel of Jesus.
