There Are Some Things You Have to Add to Your Faith!

For the past thirty years or so there has been a great emphasis on “faith” in the church world. Everything revolved around one’s faith, from determining how much faith one possessed to making daily confessions of faith to get the things that one desired. It seems as if for now that there is an attempt for the church to get a more solid grasp of what faith is and what faith isn’t:

⁴ As a result of this, he has given you magnificent promises that are beyond all price, so that through the power ofthese tremendous promises you can experience partnership with the divine nature, by which you have escaped  the corrupt desires that are of the world

⁵ So devote yourselves to lavishly supplementing your faith with goodness,

and to goodness add understanding,
⁶ and to understanding add the strength of self-control,
and to self-control add patient endurance,
and to patient endurance add godliness, 2 Peter 1:4-6 (TPT)

There are no doubt many benefits to having faith, not the least of which is having the willingness to believe for the promises of God. However, faith in “receiving” something is not enough, faith needs to extend its’ borders to embrace other things. Things like goodness and understanding; like self-control and patient endurance; and most important – godliness. For as Peter states next:

⁸ Since these virtues are already planted deep within, and you possess them in abundant supply,  they will keep you from being inactive or fruitless in your pursuit of knowing Jesus Christ more intimately. ⁹ But if anyone lacks these things, he is blind, constantly closing his eyes to the mysteries of our faith and forgetting his innocence—for his past sins have been washed away. 2 Peter 1P8-9 (TPT)

Peter states that believers possess these characteristics in abundant supply; however, if for some reason we find them lacking in our life then we become blind to the real mystery of what faith is. We forget that we came to Jesus as a sinner, lost and without hope. We heard a message of faith that said if we were to have faith in believing that Jesus was the Son fo God, who died for our sins to raise us into new life in Him. Faith helps us to secure the promises of God, for we all have a real adversary that would seek to prevent us from benefitting from the great blessing package we have been given by our Lord. Yet faith is so much than just receiving, it is adding virtue and grace to our life so much so that it becomes a drawing card to others who are lost and without hope. It’s the anchor that holds our hopes for a better life in tow, for us and for our world:

Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.  ² This testimony of faith is what previous generations were commended for.Hebrews 11:1-2 (TPT)

Maria