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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen)
Sweetman
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Productive
Christianity
2
Peter 1:3 through 9 reads:
"His divine power has given us
everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who
called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us
his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may
participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the
world caused by evil desires. For
this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and
to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to
self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to
godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For 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. But
whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that
they have been cleansed from their past sins."
According
to Peter, if you are a genuine Christian, there should be an ongoing
process of becoming the effective, productive Christian Jesus expects you
to be. Without this ongoing
process of improved productivity, Peter says that your life as a
Christian will be ineffective and unproductive.
We
often associate productivity with the corporate world of business, not with our
Christian lives. Business is
constantly improving its productivity in all aspects in order to
more effectively accomplish the reason for its existence.
As Christians, we should be constantly improving our productivity
in all aspects of our lives in order to effectively accomplish the
reason for our existence, which is, to facilitate God's will in our
lives via the divine nature within us.
Much
of our western-world Christianity is simply a matter of the mind, an
intellectual acceptance of what is perceived to be Christian.
Such perception makes no one Christian.
It's the Holy Spirit residing within us that makes us a Christian
(John 3:1 to 6, Ephesians 1:13, Romans 8:9).
Peter's admonition for a systematic, step by step approach to
improved productivity, thus, becomes the means whereby God's will is
realized in our lives.
The
moment the Holy Spirit enters your life at initial salvation is the
moment you begin to participate in the divine nature that enables the
ongoing process of being transformed into the effective and productive
Christian you have been called to be.
If this process towards productivity is foreign to you, I suggest
that you rethink how the Bible defines being a Christian.
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