2 Peter 1:5-11
Because God has already granted everything necessary for life and godliness, believers must make diligent, grace-shaped effort to cultivate the visible qualities of Christian maturity, so that their lives become fruitful, their assurance strengthened, and their future entrance into Christ's eternal kingdom increasingly confirmed.
5 Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge;
6 and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control perseverance; and in perseverance godliness;
7 and in godliness brotherly affection; and in brotherly affection, love.
8 For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to not be idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 For he who lacks these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.
10 Therefore, brothers, be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble.
11 For thus you will be richly supplied with the entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Because God has already granted everything necessary for life and godliness, believers must make diligent, grace-shaped effort to cultivate the visible qualities of Christian maturity, so that their lives become fruitful, their assurance strengthened, and their future entrance into Christ's eternal kingdom increasingly confirmed.
This passage grows directly out of 2 Peter 1:1-4. Peter has just declared that God's divine power has granted believers everything needed for life and godliness through the knowledge of Christ and through His precious promises. Verses 5-11 now show the proper response to that provision. The movement is not from grace to self-salvation, but from grace to sanctified diligence. After this paragraph, Peter turns in 1:12-15 to the ministry of remembrance, showing that these truths must be kept before the church continually.
Godliness, Apostolic Witness, and the Sure Prophetic Word
Because God has granted everything needed for life and godliness through Christ, believers must grow diligently, remember apostolic truth, and hold fast to the Spirit-given prophetic word until Christ's day dawns.