MONDAY 28th
2 Peter 1:6
‘. . . and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,’
We arrive today to the quality of ‘steadfastness’ which needs to be supplemented to our lives. The NIV which most of our fellowship uses has the word ‘perseverance’, the NLT ‘patient endurance’.
In Hebrews 10:36 we read ‘For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised’, and in James 1:3-4 we read ‘for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing’.
These verses along with our text clearly show that we as the children of God need to add steadfastness or perseverance to our faith. We need to ensure that we hold fast, hold on, keep focused with our eyes fixed upon Jesus so that we get to the finishing line.
I wonder if anyone else is like me, you decide to do something, maybe a project or aim to ensure that you complete a certain task every day, such as for some it may be to do with a fitness regime, but it isn’t too long before you begin to waver and the daily becomes weekly till you suddenly realise you have stopped doing whatever it was, you failed to complete whatever it was you should have remained focused upon. You failed to persevere, you lacked what was required, the determination to remain steadfast.
Peter is encouraging the believers, and therefore us as well to ensure that we remain steadfast in our faith, in our commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and toward his will and purpose for our lives. He wants us to ensure that we run the race and finish the course. As the Hebrew writer puts it in 12:1 ‘. . . let us run with endurance the race that is set before us . . .’.
Endurance is listed in another list of qualities found in Romans 5, verses we know very well, they start of by reminding us that we have been justified by faith, Peter also starts with faith, but Paul lists the following, faith leads to suffering, suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope.
In other words, determination to persevere or to be steadfast pays off! Someone who follows a fitness regime through to the end will certainly reap the rewards, but what is even better is this, that those of us who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ if we endure steadfastly to the end, we will reap the rewards. In Luke 21, Jesus gives to us the instruction to be steadfast to the end, he says that difficult times will come to those who follow him, especially in the last days, in verse 19 we read, ‘By your endurance you will gain your lives’. It means that through enduring to the end we will be saved.
May we supplement our faith with steadfastness, perseverance, endurance.