Lamp Posts

“Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

One of the greatest misconceptions is the notion that life is supposed to be easy. Our society has made us believe the path of least resistance is best. We think the most important pursuit in life is the pursuit of happiness. We ought to have learned by now that the only way to get happiness is to forget it, and that the unhappiest people in the world are the people who are trying the hardest to be happy.

We do ourselves and our young people a disservice by failing to tell them that life is difficult. Young people will sometimes choose a curriculum in school primarily because it is easy, while avoiding the difficult. Many of us choose our careers for the same reason. Such an approach can be softening to society and weakening to one’s character.

Spiritual growth, more than any other pursuit, is hindered by the notion that it comes easily. The Apostle Peter’s text uses two words that tell us that real growth requires great effort. The first is “diligence,” from a word that denotes earnestness, zeal, or sometimes haste. The second is the verb “supply,” from a word that means to supply fully or equip. Peter uses these two terms to say we must bend all our energies to equip ourselves with great qualities. We must not be content with anything less than the highest virtues we can add to our characters.

D. Elton Trueblood once illustrated the worthlessness of the undisciplined life. “A human life that goes in the path of least resistance will give no more usable power than will the stream that flows all over the bottom land. The only way to make a stream produce power is to put it between sharp high banks, run it through a man-made gorge where it is controlled, and, because it is controlled, the implicit power is available.”

Peter goes on to say that our lives can be fruitful and productive when we apply discipline (v. 8). The course of ease and lack of effort will not only result in a lack of any real growth, but leads to blindness and shortsightedness (v. 9). Those with a real vision in life are those who know the value of discipline and hard work.

How do we learn such discipline? Perhaps the greatest motivation comes from observing it in someone else. A good teacher is one who instills discipline in his students through a demonstration of it in his own life. And in the pursuit of godliness and virtue, Christians can look to the perfect demonstration and example in the life of Christ. In Peter’s text, the challenge to add the virtues appears in the context of “the true knowledge of Jesus Christ” and his magnificent promises (vv. 3-4).

Years ago, it was considered an impossibility for human being to run a mile in less than four minutes. People were told it would never be done. Then it was done. And in the next few years after that, many people began to do it. Why the sudden change? The only way to account for it is expectancy. The rest of the world came to realize that it was possible. Jesus is not only our example; he has shown us what we can be.

What a tragedy for a person to be less than he might be! What a shame it is for us to waste our opportunities to become what God wants in us. He made us in his image. Peter says we have the potential to become “partakers of the divine nature” (v. 4). But the road to greatness is long and difficult.

A poet once said, “The one thing that I most want to say to the young is, ‘Learn to love the difficult.’” Life will not necessarily be easy. Being a Christian will not be without its difficulties. But then nothing of importance is easy.

Dan Petty