5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This article is critical to our reading today. Please read it before continuing.

Corrie Ten Boom (who’s life needs to be studied by anyone serious about the cross) wrote this article and makes a keen observation. See this quote below from the article:

And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion–I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.

“Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”

For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.

And having thus learned to forgive in this hardest of situations, I never again had difficulty in forgiving: I wish I could say it! I wish I could say that merciful and charitable thoughts just naturally flowed from me from then on. But they didn’t.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned at 80 years of age, it’s that I can’t store up good feelings and behavior–but only draw them fresh from God each day.

This lesson that she so poignantly describes is the deep gospel lesson Peter implores us to meditate upon in verses 5-11. "I can’t store up good feelings and behavior— but only draw them fresh from God each day."

In these verses, Peter is creating a stark distinction between truly knowing God, and a knowledge of God that is “ineffective and unfruitful” (2 Peter 1:8). Ineffective and unfruitful knowledge should scare you and me— the Bible warns of it. Samuel Butler once said "There is nothing less powerful than knowledge unattached, and incapable of application."

And (here it is, Corrie Ten Boom would give a loud "Amen!") the proof that we truly know God, that we have gazed upon His glory and been in His presence, is the practice (2 Peter 1:10) of faith— self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brother affection (gk. philadephia), and love (gk. agape). And the article shows us the humanness of the struggle to know and love God in a way that practices the unsearchable depths of the gospel.

The word “supplement” in verse 5 is a key verb in this body of text (gk. epichorēgeō). In other Bible texts it means to fill, to supply (2 Corinthians 9:10), to nourish (Colossians 2:19). So the connotation is to feed and nourish continually. Here in 2 Peter 1:5-8, Peter is calling God’s people to drink, eat, feed, meditate, drink more, eat more, and feed your faith! And watch your love and affection explode for Jesus Christ! What a testimony she gives!

And as Corrie Ten Boom realized over 80 years, our human condition does not allow storing up good gospel behavior for the next many days, but we must draw them fresh from God every day at the foot of the cross. 2 Peter 1:10 says “be all the more diligent… for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.” 

The longer I am a Christian, the more and more I see that my chief duty is to come before Him daily, to kneel before the cross, to think and meditate deeply on the things of God and the person of Christ, to commune with Him, to let His new daily mercies wash over me, and to radiate His glory to a lost and dying world— full of mercy, love, empathy, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, and grace.

His kindness leads us (and others) to repentance.