In the 5th verse we are told “Besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.” None of us want to get the reputation of being lazy in material things. There is a lot in Scripture about being diligent in divine things. In the 11th verse of Romans 12 it should be, “As to diligent zealousness, not slothful.” It has nothing to do with business at all. If you see a young Christian especially devoted, especially godly, you can put it down he didn’t get to be that by going on in an indifferent way. He wasn’t indolent. So this verse says, “Giving all diligence.” There must be purpose of heart. That is true with anything in this world wherein people succeed. People do not stumble into success. It is a matter of hard work; of having a purpose and letting that purpose control and form the soul. Make it a serious business.
There is a word in the 27th Psalm along the same line. 4th verse: “One thing have I desired of the Lord.” So far so good. It is a good thing to have right desires, but that isn’t all of it. “That will I seek after.” That is a very needful part. You say “I would just love to be a real devoted child of God; I don’t want to live a shallow Christian life.” Well, there is the last part of the verse; “That will I seek after.” “Giving all diligence.”
Verse 8: “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I know the Lord doesn’t occupy us with the fruitfulness or unfruitfulness of our lives. But none of us want to be unfruitful. “If these things be in you and abound, ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful.” Here is the way to bear fruit; to be a fruitful branch for the Lord Jesus. He loves to feed among the lilies. The Lord finds His delight there. He gets fruit for His own soul. How are we going to bear the fragrance for Him?
Suppose we lack these things? “He that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” There is a kind of government of God operative amongst His people. One part of the government of God is this: If a Christian becomes indifferent and worldly-minded, and lets slip divine things, and becomes taken up with this poor world, just in a corresponding measure he loses the consciousness of the blessedness there is in Christ. He doesn’t lose the blessedness, but the consciousness of it. It is possible for a Christian to forget he was purged. He doesn’t even know whether or not he is a child of God. Things just become a blank to him, and he goes on either in utter indifference or in despair. He has forgotten he was purged. That is the government of God among His people. We want to escape that, don’t we? We want to have the constant assurance in the soul that we are headed for glory. Here is the way to get it. “If these things be in you and abound.”
“Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.” God knows we are going to be there, but this is the way to have constantly fresh in our own souls the assurance of it – to make it sure to ourselves. Just as surely as we become careless and find ourselves involved in this world, we lose that assurance, and perhaps even get into a state where we forget we are purged from our old sins. We don’t have to fall. It doesn’t bring any glory to the Lord Jesus for us to fall. It brings dishonor on Him, on the truth, and on the church of God.
“For if ye do these things ye shall never fall; for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom, of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Isn’t that a glorious entrance? That is the privilege of every Christian. It is not a question of endowment, gift or ability, but it is a question of the heart being occupied with the Christ of God; living in the enjoyment of what we have as God’s people, bought with the precious blood of Christ.
I believe each one of us here is privileged to have an abundant entrance. It is put into our own hands. We all know that the ability must come from Him. We know it is a matter of grace from first to last, and none of us are going to take any credit in the matter, but may we not thrust ourselves unreservedly upon Him, and claim the grace He so gladly gives, that we may have the joy of an “abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”?
(Continued from page 134)