When we start some thing new, we tend to get overexcited to do it with all heart and soul, as days go by we get off track and totally derail from that, there are many thing we can cite as examples. Most new year resolutions don’t cross till end of January.
In our Christian walk with Jesus, Paul equates our spiritual walk in the world that like a marathon running race (Philippians 3:14) to have a Goal towards the rewards thats there in Heaven (Philippians 3:20-21)
Philippians 3:14 'I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. '
Philippians 3:20-21 'But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.'
We are entangled by all the lusts of the world to make us derail and make our spiritual walk with Jesus totally not effective. The devil is a roaring lion to make us ineffective with the lust to sins so that we drift away.. 1 Peter 5:8 'Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. '
Apostle Peter advices a great deal to escape the corruptions of the world to make us effective (Faith to Love of Christian Life)
Christian life (Faith to Love)
2 Peter 1:5-7 '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.
What is this Faith to Love that Peter talks about ?
1st Stage : make every effort to add to your faith goodness - When we come to Christ, we came thru Faith, God gave us the Faith. It comes from the fruit of the Spirit written in Galatians 5:22-23. From the faith there is a Goodness thats being transformed in us. The goodness can be described as we start walking our life to a righteousness of Christ.
2nd Stage : and to goodness, knowledge - Once we have the Goodness in Christ as we inherit the righteousness of Christ to walk away from sin, God transforms us to know more about him thru the Knowledge - we inherit the knowledge of God thru meditation, knowing more on the word of God, the word makes our worldly knowledge go and replace that with God’s divine knowledge, with knowledge we get gifts of Holy Spirit (tongues / prophetic knowledge to know the vision of God, Plans for his people and others..)
3rd Stage : and to knowledge, self-control - Once we know more on the word of God, the knowledge of God keeps making us feel growing, the 1st time you read the Bible the experience is different, the 10th time you read there is a different experience you receive. As you mature there is a Fruit of Spirit that God seeds to us which is Self control - we don’t act on our own once we have the knowledge of God, we start to depend on God to help us in all the ways of life.
4th Stage : and to self-control, perseverance - Once we are dependent on God for all matters, there is a lot of struggles that come in the world to break this, some may slander, some lusts, some will call us as looser as we live a life for Christ. As you encounter these, God will give his Fruit of Spirit of perseverance - We perceiver when we are slandered or any troubles that comes, we praise God for troubles to know more on God’s plan than lament about the trouble or hardships..
5th Stage : and to perseverance, godliness - Once we persevere in Christ on the struggles that come our way, we inherit new spiritual blessings ,we become more stronger in Christ. God tries to make our walk more better by cleansing us and making us pure and holy by inhibiting the Godliness - this refers to the holiness of God, He makes us better every day, he chisels like a rock being carved to a good image, he carves us to his own image every day.
Luke 21:19 'Stand firm, and you will win life. '
Romans 2:7 'To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. '
6th Stage: and to godliness, mutual affection - Once we grow up in the Godliness in Christ, we walk to be watchers of sin, we pay attention to what we do to see if this will make our Lord the saviour feel sorry and bad. We start seeing others fellow brothers & sisters wh
7th stage : and to mutual affection, love. We mature from the Mutual affection to Love (Agape Love) Love of God, this means we act / do things in life only to please God and earn the love of God, we also exhibit the same kind of Love God gives to us to others as well. Why this Love is very important ? As without love we cannot do anything that God desires us to do
Agape Love - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 'Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. '
1 Corinthians 13:2-3 'If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. '
Faith is the Thumb finger and Love is the Index finger - without which you cannot hold anything fully in Christ.
If we have these Faith to Love exhibit we walk in a Godly life to run a race that lead us to the reward that God has laid for us.
Ineffectiveness in Spiritual Life
We fall of this Faith to Love to become ineffective after we reach to some stages. Peter gives the reasons for us on why we are ineffective and unproductive in Christian life.
2 Peter 1:8 '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. '
The lust to gain more knowledge, makes us pride instead of using them for God “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure”
The lust to self achieve more for us than to God’s, a church / ministry is for God many start well and slowly drift from God to treat the church / ministry for themself - this makes us being ineffective.
We become unproductive when we are filled with lazziness, the more the knowledge we have we think, I know it all and pride creeps inside us to overcome God’s plan in our life. We become Unproductive
At the same time there is a warning as well 2 Peter 1:9 'But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. We cannot be unprepared with these gifts as well as we can drift away from where we came..
So the Faith to Love has to be a balanced sufficiently to walk the spiritual life.. Our Goal in life is not to maximise everything. We need to get what is enough (Both Spiritual blessing and worldly blessing). That should be our prayer.
How can we Identify Spiritual Ineffectiveness in us ?
There are many self evaluations that can answer our ineffective state and revive the back sliding we have had..
Self analyse how many sermons you hear and not act ?
God’s command for you and what you have not obeyed ?
Check to see how many revival meetings / prayer meetings you are running after without obeying to what was already promised ?
Analyse what spiritual pride you have that makes you unproductive?
Pray to God every day to protect you from this ineffective state. The enemy is deceptive, slowly he does many things, many non-invasive things to make us ineffective in the walk. Seeking God and asking him to identify and correct us can make us better. Its impossible to get better in our human wisdom and knowledge, only the Holy Spirit can lead and act to correct us. We need to yield to God to make us better. Without us yielding there is no way God will act.