The Christian faith is a continual walk and building on your faith. Committing your life to Jesus is the first step in your journey with Jesus. It would be easy to say, “I’ve made it”, but you need to keep on growing. Read these verses from 2 Peter:
So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
2 Peter 2 v 5-9
Jesus has given us everything we need, but we are responsible to use what he has given us. All these qualities need to be developed and worked on at the same time. We should keep increasing them and doing so will take a lot of work. Our character starts when we trust God and start becoming more like Jesus. But it continues as we develop these 7 qualities:
- Good character
- Spiritual understanding
- Alert discipline
- Passionate patience
- Reverent wonder
- Warm friendliness
- Generous love
I get excited when I read this list. 35 years ago I started my journey with Jesus, and I began growing in these qualities. I am not there by any stretch of the imagination but the journey continues. My being me gets in the way a lot – for instance, alert discipline. When things happen to me, I tend to lose focus on alert discipline. I have recently become redundant and now find myself trying to fill in the hole by buying stuff. Writing this post reminds me that I need to be alert in discipline so that when stuff disturbs me I will not lose touch with discipline. It’s a journey!
If you have started then use what Jesus has given to you and start growing. If you haven’t started your journey then read the post above and get going. You will never regret it.