2 Peter 1:5-8 

⁵For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. ⁸For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Hidden Talent

            Someone proudly declared, “I have many hidden talents!” A curious listener asked, “Really? What talent do you have?” “I don’t know!” the proud replied. “You said that you’ve many talents, and you cannot identify even for one!” came the jeer. He explained, “I don’t know because they are hidden talents!”

            How can you discover your hidden talent? Try something new! Your hidden talent will remain hidden until you try it. Maybe, you can be great in gardening.

            Planting flowers, vegetables or fruit trees can very therapeutic. Observing plants grow and produce flowers and fruits are indescribable moments of truth.

God wants us to grow in our faith, and Christ Jesus wants us to produce fruits; to understand what the Lord wants for us, it is very advisable to experience gardening. Jesus Christ teaches in John 15:1-2, ¹I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ²He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

            A good gardener takes care of the grapevine to grow and produce fruits. Likewise God takes care of us to grow spiritually and produce fruit. Pruning is necessary to strengthen the branches of the grapevine and produce better fruits. Similarly, God removes parts of us that he deems not useful for productiveness.

            Faith is not idle belief of God. Faith in God should be productive. It declares in James 2:17-19, ¹⁷Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. ¹⁸But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. ¹⁹You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

            Why many individuals despise Christianity? Maybe they have observed Christians who have no transformation in their life. Don’t deceive yourselves. Make sure that you’ve got faith in Christ. Make sure that your faith is productive. Make sure that you have been transformed to experience blessings from the Lord.

1.  Make

⁵For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;

            Surely, our human effort cannot transform ourselves spiritually, but God can. Why do we make every effort to add goodness and knowledge to our faith if we cannot? Our part is to evaluate if we are growing or not yet. Is there goodness in us? Do we know that goodness is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our life?

            Previously, Apostle Peter declared that with his divine power, Christ has given us everything we need for godly life. But, not all Christians had realized it. Being idle and unproductive warns that what Christ has given was not utilized yet.

Why are we advised to make every effort to add to our faith goodness and knowledge? For us to know what the Lord had given us! How can we access everything we need for godly life if we don’t know what Christ had delivered for us? We pray for his helps. But wait! Our effort is not enough! What can we do?

Listen

            We can learn from the personal experience of Apostle Peter. At one time,

Jesus took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. When Moses and Elijah appeared before Jesus, Peter instinctively thought he had to do something; he suggested in Luke 9:32-35, ³³“Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He did not know what he was saying. ³⁴While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. ³⁵A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”

            Like Peter, many Christian practitioners are good and helpful. They want to do anything godly. Preachers encourage participation in the ministry. If we get involved in the ministry on our own initiative, it’s very admirable, right? But, will the Lord appreciate it? So first and foremost, we need to listen to Jesus Christ our Lord. God wants us to get involved specifically in the ministry he prepared for us.

It declares in Ephesians 2:8-10, ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

            Listen: By faith, we received eternal life. When our faith is active and not idle, the Holy Spirit produces goodness in us; good works become spontaneous lifestyle. God prepared and designed the good works we should do. How is that?

God designed eagles to fly; fish to swim; kangaroo to jump. When an eagle chooses to swim and jump, we smile, but if the eagle flies high, God smiles.

            God intentionally designed good works we should do that he wants to bless. Why do many pastors and ministry workers experience burned out? Maybe, they have exhausted themselves doing good things that God did not design for them.

            It is godly goodness to have mutual affection and love one another.

2.  Mutual

 ⁶and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 

            What does Christ wants us to do? To have mutual affection and love for each another! Mutual affection and love for each other should be inspired by the Holy Spirit. We love God because he loved us first. If God loved us first, should the Lord not initiate everything, even what we think, say, decide and do? It is proper.

            By human effort, we can never mutually love God. We may reciprocate his love for us when his Holy Spirit produces love in us. Thus, we can have mutual affection toward our brothers and sisters in Christ; it is godly practice of faith.

            Faith that practically expressed in goodness can persevere. We persevere in godly lifestyle and love one another until Christ returns. That’s productive faith.

            Jesus Christ had instructed in John 13:34-35, ³⁴A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

            Loving one another as brothers and sisters in Christ is mutual affection and practical proof of obedience to the Lord. When the Holy Spirit transforms us, he produces love in us. How can we mutually express love towards other believers?

            As part of the body of Christ, the church, we practice our spiritual gifts in collaborative efforts toward our common goal. Let’s reflect on what it says in 1 Corinthians 12: 25-28, ²⁵There should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. ²⁷Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.

            No spiritual gift is greater than the other. The order of 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and the rest of spiritual gift does not necessarily imply the first is greater than the rest. Instead, God distributed spiritual gifts according to collaborative productivity.

Gardener

We love it when friends posted their beautiful plants on their social media. Beautiful plants are pleasant to see, that is why gardeners take care of their plants.

Gardeners follow the order of activities in gardening to have great results. They prepare the land, plant, water, fertilize, cultivate, prune and other activities. All necessary activities that gardeners must do are significant to plant growth.

We also grow spiritually as we practice our faith. Reward for goodness is waiting. Christ says in Revelation 22:12-13, ¹²Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. ¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

            When it says, “according to what they have done,” the measure of reward that Christ gives depends on our obedience to the good work that God prepared.

Let us evaluate our faith every now and then to make sure we grow spiritually mature. May God help us effectively productive in increasing measure, amen!

3.  Measure

⁸For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

            The Lord wants all of us to be productive and effective. Productive faith is manifested in goodness as practical expression of knowledge of God and his will. Not only that, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love should follow. As God transforms our life, we expect that He has given everything we need for godly life through the divine power of Jesus Christ our Lord.

            Christ is good Lord; he provides for our needs. He had delivered everything we need for godly life. Can you believe that? If you can strongly believe it, then you possess the above mentioned qualities in increasing measure. But if there’s still little doubt about it, it should cause us to learn more about God and his will.

            When it says, possess these qualities in increasing measure, productive faith is required; we continue to grow spiritually and not remain idle in our faith.

Prune

            In video, a gardener showed an older apple tree that bears not much fruit.

The gardener explained the need to prune the apple tree to be productive again. He proceeded and cut dried, damaged branches of the old apple tree. In the next video, the old apple tree had grown new branches that had more fruits.

            Similarly, God the Gardener removes any part of us that are ineffective and unproductive, including lifestyle, behavior, habit, attitude or even culture, if he deems it necessary. We must make sure that our faith is effective and productive.

How do you personalize what Jesus Christ declares in Matthew 9:37-38? ³⁷The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

            When you hear sermon about missions or evangelism, are you tempted to act immediately? Instinctively, we want to do something about it, just to suppress the guilt feeling of no productivity or not being involved in witnessing or mission.

Apostle Peter was like that in the early years after he followed Jesus Christ our Lord. Formerly, Peter was one who acts before he thinks or asks for advice. The same Peter had grown mature spiritually when he advised to make sure we have productive faith and grow spiritually mature in increasing measure.

Christ has given us everything we need for godly life. Our goal is godly life.

A godly life is transformed life that will serve as practical proof of our faith in Christ. We can be effective and productive spiritually as we grow mature in increasing measure, so that we would be more obedient to our Lord Jesus Christ.

How can we have productive and effective faith in Christ? Christ instructed in Matthew 6:20-21, ²⁰Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Worldly wealth offers limited and temporal excitement. In contrast, eternal treasure offers unlimited, endless glorious rejoicing in heaven for all eternity.

When Christ instructed us to store up treasures in heaven, it must be very essential to life in heaven, and our treasures in heaven depend on what we do. When we do the good works that God designed for us we store up treasures in heaven for ourselves. Pray fervently for you internalize this reality.

             We continue to pray that the Holy Spirit of Christ in us will empower us to continue grow mature spiritually so that we store up more treasures in heaven.

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