Make Every Effort

When I taught third grade, we would introduce the kids to typing programs during computer lab. At first, the keyboard was tedious, took time and seemed much more of a pain than a learning tool. However, by the middle of the year, those children who had practiced their typing on a regular basis were beginning to see the benefits of the tool. Suddenly, searching the internet was easier. Finally, typing out an essay was faster than writing it by hand. It would frustrate me when I witnessed some of my students stuck in phase one of the keyboard introduction, refusing to practice and missing out on the usefulness of the tool they had before them. They expected any typing to be done by their parents or teacher, thinking that it was too much work to learn finger placement and practice typing accuracy and speed. They were missing a huge benefit.

Today and next week in our church's Women's Bible Study, we are studying the first half of II Peter 1. Today we studied the necessity of using the tools God has given us. First we camped on the well known verse of II Peter 1:3, "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His glory and goodness." It is convicting to read that passage and realize we have no excuse to say we are lacking a tool to be holy in a situation. God has given us the Holy Spirit and His Word to guide us in our actions. In my Bible's commentary on this verse, John MacArthur even writes, "To be godly is to live reverently, loyally, and obediently toward God. Peter means that the genuine-believer ought not to ask God for somthing more (as if something necessary to sustain his growth, strength and perseverance was missing) to become godly, because he already has every spiritual resource to manifest, sustain and perfect godly living." (Pg. 1922, NASB) How often, when I have sinned, do I run in repentance to God and ask Him for more strength next time I face that situation?! He has given me His strength already! What I lack is obedience.

In conjunction with this verse, we studied the famous passage of I Corinthians 10:13: "No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it." Growing up, I always thought that this verse meant God would give me a moment to flee the temptation through supernatural means--a phone would ring, a person would interrupt the conversation, the electricity would go out, etc. Something would interrupt the moment enough that I would have a way to escape the tempting situation. Again, I was putting much of the responsibility on God, without much effort on my part. Of course, God graciously can, and does, do this from time to time, but that is not what this verse is primarily saying. As we just mentioned in II Peter 1, God has ALREADY given us the means necessary to escape and fight temptation. We have His Word and the Holy Spirit. If we truly are saturated in the Word and know God, His pure and perfect will, then we will be able to recall truth to fight the sinful lie we are facing.

Here comes the convicting application. We must make an effort. The strength and holiness is all God's, but He lovingly equips us. We must use the tools He gives us. We must be in the Word daily--reading, studying, memorizing, meditating. We must have prayer and have quiet time to listen to and converse with God. We must respond to the Holy Spirit when we feel conviction or prompting. We must make every effort to use what God has supplied to us.

II Peter 1:5 tells us that to avoid the corruption of the world we must be "applying all diligence" or "making every effort" to exercise godly qualities. In fact, Peter even lists several upon which to focus. There is no doubt that this requires effort.

Despite what the world tells us and what our fleshly nature desires, the Christian walk is not an exercise in laziness and just gathering blessings from above. We are aliens in this world, fighting a daily battle against sin and Satan, and denying our flesh to become more and more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thankfully, God gives us all we need to do this successfully. We just need to make every effort to utilize His gracious gifts to us.