One of the most inspiring truths of the Christian faith, is that we’re encouraged to grow and evolve into better people. And fortunately, the Bible is filled with truly inspirational passages that encourage us and help us on that journey.
I am a firm believer that positivity and the Christian faith go hand-in-hand. Christians are meant to be happy, calm and resilient, because we are taught and know that God is with us and there is nothing more powerful than God. Our purpose here may at times seem unclear to us, but I believe that no matter what, we are intended to be full of joy, hope and peace — knowing this, our journey to become better people, is in many ways, mapped out for us.
Take this passage for example — its a road map of sorts, which tells us steps to grow and improve:
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. – 2 Peter1:5-7
This passage from Peter is saying “make every effort,” which in my opinion, means to try — to do your best to:
Faith: add goodness to your faith: don’t just have faith, but be good too.
Goodness: add knowledge to your goodness — could this refer to learning more about the world around us and perhaps, how we can help make it a better world for all of us?
Knowledge: to knowledge, add self-control — could this mean that unbridled knowledge isn’t always good, unless we learn to use it more wisely?
Self-control: add perseverance — I wonder if this means that we should strive to keep trying and to not give up in our efforts to try and have more self control?
Perseverance: we are to add godliness — I believe this means that in our perseverance, we need to keep goodness and kindness at our center and to try and stay on course through faith.
Godliness: we are told to add mutual affection — I wonder is this means that we are meant to be kind and tender with each other, so on our path, we must not forget to be good to each other, just as God tells us to.
Mutual affection: we are to add love and for me, this is a big one, because its the root of our call to be good, kind and understanding — we are being guided to never forget to love God above all else, and then to love each other.
I find great hope and peace in passages such as these, because they’re almost like little notes that help us on our earthly journey — help us to find our way down here, so that we can assure a place up above, in God’s Heavenly Kingdom.
