Supply Your Faith With Formed Character

THE WORD

Peter opens this list with one of the most urgently demanding phrases in all of his writings: "make every effort." The Greek is spoudē — and it means exactly what it sounds like. Diligence. Haste. Eagerness. The kind of earnest, straining, all-out effort that a runner makes in the final stretch, that a craftsman gives to the work that carries his name, that a parent gives to the child who is in danger. This is not the language of leisure or of passive spiritual development. This is a command to engage your full will, your full energy, and your full intentionality in the pursuit of a specific, progressive, ladder-like spiritual growth. And the ladder begins with faith — which tells you that the writer assumes you are already a believer. Faith is where you start. What Peter is addressing with total urgency is what happens — or fails to happen — after you start. Because a staggering number of believers start with faith and stop there. They are saved.

They know they are saved. And they stay, spiritually, exactly where they were on the day of their conversion — for years, for decades, for a lifetime. The structure of the list Peter provides is deliberately sequential and developmental — each quality both requires and produces the next. Supplement faith with virtue — aretē, moral excellence, the courageous goodness that expresses itself in right behavior. Then supplement virtue with knowledge — not mere information but the growing, experiential, relational knowing of God and His ways. Then supplement knowledge with self-control — the mastery of your desires, your appetites, and your impulses so that they do not master you. Then supplement self-control with steadfastness — the patient, enduring, unmovable continuation toward God under pressure. Then supplement steadfastness with godliness — the God-ward orientation of your entire life that emerges from steady endurance. Then supplement godliness with brotherly affection — the particular, tender, family-bonded love for fellow believers. And finally, supplement brotherly affection with love — agapē, the full, self-giving, unconditional love that reflects the very nature of God. This is the full development of a Christian life.