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For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. – 2 Peter 1:5-7

God has given us all that we need, in and through Christ.  He says that He will deliver us even from death, that we are adopted into His family, and that a new kind of life everlasting is ours.  By “standing on the promises of God”, by believing Him, we enter into a new world as new creations. 

Those of us who lived loosely or wickedly before have, in some ways, an advantage over the good people who are no less in need of making this transition.  Our burden was obviously sin.  Their burden is often “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches” (Matthew 13:22) – responsibilities and duties.  These are not bad things in themselves necessarily, but they keep the focus on the wrong side of the ledger.  They are effects rather than causes. 

Regardless, though, of where we start from, we all start by faith and build on that.  Faith is looking toward God.  Little faith looks to the Cross for relief from the penalty of sin.  More faith looks for deliverance from the power of sin.  If the eyes of the heart are fixed on the revelation of God in Christ for all things, that is great faith. 

But even great faith is only putting us on the right road.  The journey and the destination remain.  We have entered the new world, the kingdom, but we have to grow into it.  Living virtuously becomes possible to us, but it still may not come so naturally at first.  We have to practice virtue.  We have the revelation, but it is doing God’s will that knowledge comes (John 7:17).

And so it goes.  Practicing virtue leads to knowledge.  Knowledge enables us to live a life of self-control.  We are no longer blown about by the winds of deception.  Self-control allows us to be reliable, solid citizens of the kingdom.  Our steadfast adherence to the Lord’s will gives us more of His nature which makes us more understanding, kind, and sympathetic to those around us.  Affection develops into that self-sacrificing agape love that was shown in fullness by the Son.  Then we enter into the territory of the notable saints. 

Each rung on the ladder lets us reach the next one, and we will never reach the top standing on the bottom step.  Hear the voice of the Lord calling, “Come up higher.” 

I don’t know how far up I will get.  Maybe I have a touch of acrophobia.  But what else do I have to do in this life?