Do you remember Christ’s parable of the servant who buried the money his master entrusted to him, and in so doing wasted his opportunity to add value to it? From the parable it’s clear that our Lord deals with his people on a “use it or lose it” basis (Luke 19:11-26).
The apostle Peter writes of believers all having received “the same precious faith” and lists the virtues – seven in all – that we should add to our faith (2 Peter 1:2, 5-7). Some regard faith as the ultimate gift, but it’s really the immediate one, and given to us to use rather than to preserve.
Peter makes it clear that we are to add excellence to our faith – “and to excellence knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.” (2 Peter 1:5-7)
These virtues are not intrinsic to faith but need to be added to it, one after another, until character is fully developed. God gives us precious faith, and it is then up to us to add value to it. How to do this?
Solomon asked God for wisdom, and God gave it to him (1 Kings 3:5-12). Years later, when the Queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fame, she came to test his wisdom with difficult questions. Solomon answered them all. There was no question he could not answer (1 Kings 10:1-3).
But what took the queen’s breath away was “the house that he had built, and the food on his table, and the seating arrangement of his servants, and the attendance of his waiters, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and the way he went up to worship.”
The repetitive use of the conjunctive “and” in this passage emphasizes the increasingly favorable impression these things made on the Queen of Sheba. It was not King Solomon’s wisdom alone but the virtues he had added to it that made the scene so compelling and his majesty so overwhelming.
Excellence is seen not just in the things we do, but in the way we do things.
Faith not only enables: when excellence is added to it it also ennobles. The ancient Greek word translated “virtue” in the King James Version refers to a moral excellence that is either intrinsic (already present within) or attributed (seen, acknowledged, and praised by others). Just as Christ is “formed” in us and is then seen by others in our daily conduct.
In 1 Corinthians 1:26 the Apostle Paul states that that few of Christ’s followers in Corinth were numbered among the nobility and perhaps the same could be said of Christians in society today. But although nobles are rare in the church, nobility was seen in Jesus Christ, not only in the things he did but also in the way that he did them.
“He has done all things well!” the people of Decapolis exclaimed, after Jesus had healed a deaf man with a speech impediment (Mark 7:37).
“It was never before seen like this in Israel!” was another acknowledgement of the Lord’s excellence. Jesus embodied excellence. Those who heard him teach were astonished at his authority and the way he did things (Mark 1:22 & 4:41).
We should desire to add to our lives virtues that match the precious faith we’ve been given. Why live mediocre lives when the faith we possess is so precious?
Faith does not of itself ennoble; that is, “raise to nobility, dignify, exalt, elevate in degree, quality or excellence.” It is up to us to excel so that we may be seen by others as valuable; as people who are as precious as the faith they possess.
As Jacob’s firstborn son, Reuben was entitled to a “double portion” from his father – twice as much as any of his brothers (Deuteronomy 21:17). But Reuben lacked nobility. He was a moral coward. He profaned his father’s marriage bed. Reuben ought to have been the first expression of his father’s virtues, but his immorality prevented him from realising his potential.
“Reuben,” Jacob prophesied, “you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power: unstable as water, you shall not excel…”
“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:6)
God took the double portion from Reuben and gave it to the single-minded Joseph. Moreover, instead of a single tribe of Joseph there would now be two tribes: Ephraim and Manasseh – a double portion! (Genesis 49:3; 1 Chronicles 5:1, 2)
Reuben, the firstborn son of Leah (whom Jacob had been tricked into marrying), lost the birthright because he failed to excel. Joseph was the firstborn son of Rachel, Jacob’s true love. (In the end, it was as though the infamous bride-switch had never happened.)
Excellence is the quality we add to the faith that God has given us; and just as Reuben needed more than a birthright (he needed to excel in order to live up to his father’s expectations), so we need more than faith to fulfill our heavenly Father’s expectations. We need added excellence! Not that faith itself needs improvement, but rather that precious faith ought to be seen in precious people, Christians whose values approximate that of the faith they’ve been given.
Excellence means getting more from less: less reading, better books; fewer friends, closer friendships; less activity, increased productivity; better policy, fewer decisions; narrower vision, sharper focus; fewer pursuits, greater satisfaction.
We need a transfer of energy from the muscles to the axe blade, and for that to happen the blade needs to be sharpened, rather than our muscles developed (Ecclesiastes 10:10).
Jesus excelled in everything. Not only did he turn water into wine but the wine was the very best! In his first ministry appearance Jesus shone, not only in the things he did, but also in the way that he did them (John 2:1-11).
A nation with a vast raw mineral reserve can simply mine it and export it, or it can mine it, process it, forward it to an industrial plant, and export the products manufactured from it. The value added is the number of jobs created by the processing and manufacturing plants.
Some Christians are content with the blessing they receive from their reserve of faith. It has not occurred to them that they can add to their faith: first excellence, and after that a whole range of values. Why excellence first? The values the apostle Peter lists are progressive: each is developed from the one that precedes it.
The final product (so to speak) is love, which developed from brotherly kindness, which developed from godliness, which came from perseverance, which developed from self-control, which came from knowledge, which developed from excellence, which developed from faith.
The product began with faith and was processed (so to speak) until finally it was value-packaged as love – ready for export to a world badly in need of it. Those who view the finished product are impressed. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were as breathless as the Queen of Sheba was in Solomon’s palace?
Don’t just have faith but add value to it. Doing so will serve you well in this life, and will enable you to enter the coming kingdom of God.
NOTE: This post is a chapter from my book “Faith: God’s Gift to the Heart.” Read the entire book free on https://peterbarfootministry.com/books/book-3/