Real Growth


 For if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately.  2 Peter 1: 8

Did you ever wish that God would wave a magic wand over your life and change something? Maybe change you? The thing is, change like that isn’t lasting. It’s here today and gone tomorrow, and often with something worse in its place. God wants so much more for us.

Change that lasts takes time and effort. It often goes through many stages. Our verse today mentions “if these things are really yours” and you might be wondering what “these things” are. In verses 5-7 Peter lays out a series of attributes or virtues that build upon one another. They are the “things” referred to in verse 8, and the ways by which we can avoid becoming ineffective and unproductive in our Christian walk.

Faith > Excellence > Knowledge > Self-Control > Perseverance > Godliness > Brotherly Affection > Unselfish Love

In my mind’s eye I picture these like the rungs of a ladder that we are climbing in life, one leading naturally into the next. We can’t skip too far ahead, though we might like to. Perhaps we’d like to skip that self- control bit and just head into brotherly love. But the thing is, sometimes it’s hard to love our brother and it takes quite a bit of self-control. If we haven’t worked on that first, we aren’t quite ready to take on the harder tasks ahead of us.

I also see these virtues as being different from the fruit of the Spirit. You see the fruit of the Spirit is God’s fruit being shown in our lives. It’s the fruit of His work in us. We don’t do anything to make it happen other than spending time growing closer to Him. In case you’re wondering I’m referring to Galatians 5:22-23 where it talks about the fruit of the Spirit being love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But with these virtues, it mentions in 2 Peter 1:5 that we should “make every effort” to add these things to our lives. The chapter goes on to emphasize our role in continuing this path of growth, and our responsibility to make sure it does not stagnate.

Here's the Thing: Real growth is hard-won, but hard-won growth is lasting and real.

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