_edited.png)
Basis of Faith
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are your and increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-8
Culturally speaking, and as far as I can tell, we are in the midst of a movement of self-improvement. Take a quick look online and you’ll see no shortage of life coaches, fitness influencers, and lifestyle and wellness gurus. We are also talking about mental health more and bringing awareness to issues that you don’t see.
These things are great, improving the areas of your life that need help and having a net of people on and offline that you can talk to is great. Even as early as a single generation ago, this wasn’t the case. Having the ability, humility, and dedication to improve is admirable. But, we are going about it all wrong. I have at the very least.
Now, this isn’t a guide on how to improve your physique or a recipe book for losing weight, or even a motivational montage of quotes from the “greatest” men and women to ever live. I have no gym advice to give you, no financial advice, no psychologically scientific data to get you from zero to hero. What I do have is the verse above that has continually challenged and motivated me. Here are my thoughts.
In this part, we will discuss why the start is usually what stops us and why it’s important where you start.
We begin with the first line. A call to make every effort. This is pretty standard for improvement, try hard in everything you do. However, that’s not what we are called to here. Reading further we come to my favourite part. We are called to supplement our faith with every effort. Supplement our faith.
Why is this important to self-improvement?
The importance is in the meaning and order of this call to action. Those aiming to enhance their physiques, namely athletes and bodybuilders, know the word supplement well. For myself, however, let's get some definitions. The first three definitions that I found all perfectly encapsulate why this word is so important.
Something added to complete a thing
Supply a deficiency
Reinforce or extend a whole
The importance of these definitions is that you must have a base to supplement. Athletes need the physique, work ethic, and drive. Because without that the supplements won't have any effect or not a positive one. In the world of bodybuilding, supplements are massive, but completely useless if you never work out.
In the same way, we need a base, a foundation, of FAITH before we can usefully add anything to ourselves. Faith first and foremost then adding, extending, supplementing that faith with virtue, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.
When faith is present and strong, then and only then can we truly see the deficiencies in our lives because we have a true and perfect example. Without faith, we fail to notice the parts of our lives that are lacking or not present at all. These lacking qualities are an extension of faith and not the other way around.
In conclusion, without a firm foundation of faith, there can be no effective or fruitful improvement, especially in one’s self. That faith paints us a perfect, spotless, blameless image, that of Jesus, who we are called to embody. It is in his identity that we seek to better ourselves and in doing so our improvement is not only of the body and mind, but more important and eternal, our soul.
Comments