Add

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. – 2 Peter 1.5-7

We have been reading a lot about all that God does for us. He empowers and strengthens us and makes makes great and precious promises that we can depend on. 

But here we read about what we are supposed to do. We know we are supposed to do it and that it is important and because God has done all that He has done we are to ‘give all diligence’ to do what we are supposed to do. That means we are to be serious about doing what He wants us to do. 

We are to diligent about adding to our faith. 

Add to your faith virtue, 

Add to virtue knowledge, 

Add to knowledge self-control, 

Add to self-control perseverance, 

Add to perseverance godliness,

Add to godliness brotherly kindness, 

Add to brotherly kindness love.

It would be interesting to stop and look at every word and examine the progression here, but I just want to focus and the basis and the ultimate goal. 

The basis is faith. Without that all the rest would be nothing more than a collection of good works. 

But the result is something we see over and over. The end result to all of this adding is love. That is our focus and our goal. We are told that of faith, hope, and love the greatest is love. We are told to put on love above all things. Jesus summarised the Law with the words ‘love God and love others.’

Our trademark should be love. When people think of me the first thing they should think about is my love. 

Where is love in my priority list? Where should it be?