In Increasing Measure

           For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (II Peter 1:5-8)

          This was the passage for yesterday, but I thought I’d come back to it today so I could address the part of it I missed yesterday. Why? Why should we add these things to each other? Yesterday, I said that each takes something from the last that is necessary to it and gives something to the last that it needs. Peter gives us another reason.

          If we do not possess these, we cannot know Jesus Christ. We might know something about Him, but we don’t know Him. As we possess them, grow in them, develop them, or increase them, we become increasingly effective and we come to know Jesus Christ better. This isn’t anything new. When you start out at anything, chances are good that you’re not effective or efficient. As you keep practicing, you get better at it. But, as baseball enthusiasts know, hitting the ball a third of the time is considered good enough to join the major league.

          And you can stay in the major league if you keep up that average, or if you improve, but if you start sliding downward in the stats, you get cut. We should always strive to be better, but not be concerned if we’re not perfect, because if we were perfect, there’d be nowhere to go but toward failure. We would no longer need Christ, and therefore (at least very likely) cease to walk with Him, to know Him, etc.