Day 6 – The Law of Progression

(2 Peter 1:3-11)

Progression is an important word that most people are familiar with. It is important because nobody wants to remain static in life. There is always a starting point for everything in life, but you then need to progress from there. There is no proper building without foundation, yet  foundations do not make the building.

To have a house, you need to build on the foundation. Today’s passage teaches us that the foundation of our walk with God is our faith in Christ, but we must build on this foundation.

The need for divine empowerment

Building on our faith is a spiritual work, therefore, we need divine empowerment. We are not expected to generate the power to build on our faith by ourselves, hence, God by His divine nature in us has given us all we need for life and godliness. This divine empowerment grants us access to the knowledge of God and the promises he has made to us.

As we grow in our knowledge of God, we become more like him, partakers of his divine nature (v.4). We can build on our faith because we have God’s nature and have access to the knowledge of God.

Make every effort to progress

Being divinely empowered, we are called to build on our foundational faith one brick upon another (vs.5-7). Therefore, we are instructed to make every effort to add to our faith goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, and love.

The phrase “make every effort” suggests intentionality and persevering hard work. This passage presupposes that we are designed to make progress in our faith. We cannot stay at our starting point; we must build on our foundations. Stagnation in our walk is offensive to the grace God has made available to us.

Spiritual and kingdom fruitfulness is dependent upon spiritual progression. We can only be fruitful to the extent we make progress in our faith. To avoid spiritual barrenness or unfruitfulness, we must abound in the above virtues. Not abounding in these leads to spiritual blindness, to the extent of forgetting the foundational work of faith in us by Christ. Life does not celebrate stagnation; therefore, we must make every effort to progress in our walk with God.

“Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure“

Philippians 2:12-13