FAITH is ONLY the Beginning...

[Tammy]

It seems many talk a lot about FAITH....but....FAITH is ONLY the BEGINNING...if we don't add to our faith, godly morals & knowledge, self-control & patience & godliness, brotherly affection & love, then we are not climbing the ladder that leads to Heaven.

I hear lots of people talk about having faith....but it seems that many of the other virtues are left out... I believe that these virtues are like steps on the ladder, that each one builds on the previous one....that it is impossible to get to the top, to Heaven, with ONLY faith.... Faith is just the beginning....

2 Peter 1:5-11
(5) In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge,
(6) and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness,
(7) and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.
(8) The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(9) But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.
(10) So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away.
(11) Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

[sdowney717]

i like the way the NKJV brings this out
'and to brotherly kindness love'

Love the most important thing as Paul also writes in 1 Cor13.

13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.

2 Peter 1:5-11
New King James Version (NKJV)

Fruitful Growth in the Faith

5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.

8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We are already in a spiritual sense, seated in the heavens as Eph.2 says
Meaning out home is there, not stumbling means an abundant entrance, Stumbling means a 1 cor 3 entrance where there is no rewards for what you did in this life, only your spirit is saved, the fire tests the works and they are all burnt up. BECAUSE you have no love as Paul wrote in 1 Cor 13. However the work of salvation God did in your life is secure, the foundation of Christ of course will stand up to the fire of God.

9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. 10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

People with no love, well they do things for other reasons than godly reasons. God promises He will test what we did in the fire, and without the outward working of love of God in our life, we will suffer loss of reward.