Steadfastness in 2024

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,

and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,

and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”

2 Peter 1:5-7

At the outset of the year, setting resolutions or goals ambitiously is easy. However, the follow-through often proves more challenging than we imagine when we excitedly scratch out ways we want to change on paper. Over the years, my modus operandi has been what some might hear as a boring, under-ambitious “keep going.” However, it’s yielded more fruit than I could’ve imagined, and I believe it’s because steady plodding is one of the Lord’s most common ways of transforming us.

In the above verses, the first thing Peter instructs his readers to supply to their faith is virtue. Virtue can be understood as moral excellence, strength, or resolve. Part of what the Greek definition of this word includes is “eminent endowment.” It speaks to an awareness and belief that the Lord has given us everything we need to pursue the list that follows the word virtue. I encourage you to read the previous verses, 2 Peter 1:2-3 to hear Peter clearly communicate this reality!

We can be resolved to keep going and growing because the Lord has given us everything we need to grow in steadfastness, including His Holy Spirit, the very power of God.

The Thief of Steadfastness and its Antidote…keep reading over at Club31 Women!