A Confirmation of Faith

“Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

(2 Peter 1:10-11 ESV)

We are encouraged, today, to separate our faith from our daily life. Faith, we’re told, is personal. It’s a private matter. It’s something to be kept to ourselves.

And we’ve become pretty skilled at doing so. We express our faith on Sunday, if we make it to church. Perhaps we express it during a pre-meal prayer before our family Christmas or Easter dinner. However, we keep the rest of our life separate. We do all that we can to keep our faith out of our day to day relationships and activities.

However, as we see above, we are to be diligent, or eager, to express our faith. Peter isn’t suggesting that we put our faith in our efforts. He’s saying, rather, that our faith is to be expressed in the qualities discussed previously. It’s to be expressed in virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.

This makes complete sense. As a people who have been redeemed from sin, we should no longer pursue our wicked desires. Knowing the great extent to which God went that we might be saved from sin and death, namely the sacrifice of his only Son, we naturally love him in return. And, as a result, we long to live for him. We long to glorify him.

Our works do not save us. But the expression of our faith, through these qualities, confirms our faith. It reveals our faith to be genuine and indisputable.

If we practice these qualities, Peter says, we will never fall. He’s not suggesting that we’ll be free from sin. But, so long as we’re pursuing the things of God and not those of our sinful nature, we will not fall from grace.

In this way, through the power of God which supplies all that pertains to life and godliness (verse 3), there will be provided to us entrance into the kingdom of God. By possessing a true and genuine faith, we are saved. And a true and genuine faith is not one that’s separated from our day to day life, but one that is expressed in it.