Like precious faith

Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, - 2 Peter 1v1-3

I love this truth. It leaves no room for two levels of faith. It eliminates the idea of a higher plane faith.

All of us have a ‘like precious faith.’ That is, all of us have faith of equal value. The reason for this is that our faith is not based on our own work or our own righteousness, but it was given to us based on the righteousness of Jesus, our God and Saviour.

In that righteousness comes all we need for godly living. His divine power gives us all we need for daily life and for godly living. The right daily life and godly come through knowing Him better. He has called all of us in accordance with His glory and His virtue.

Sometimes it is tempting to compare ourselves to others and think that we are in some way better then them because they do things we don’t think Christians should do, or they don’t do things that we think Christians should. We tend to base ‘righteousness’ on our own preferences.

And yet there it is. We all have a ‘like precious faith.’ I am in no way excusing sin or unbiblical behaviour, but let’s be careful that we don’t get caught in the trap of thinking that our faith is any more or less precious than anyone else – it is all His righteousness.