…. add to your faith virtue. 2 Peter 1:5 NKJV (Note 1)
To add means that we must get into the habit of actually doing something. To take the initiative is to make a beginning. To instruct yourself in the way you must go. We cannot do what God does. And God will not do what we can do. We cannot save nor sanctify ourselves. God does that. But God will not give us good habits or character. And He will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do those things ourselves.
So stop hesitating. Take the first step. Beware of the tendency to ask the way when you know it perfectly well. Be determined to act immediately in faith on what God says to you when He speaks, and never reconsider or change your initial decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do something, you are being careless with the grace in which you stand. Make a decision of your will right now, and make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you, saying, “I will write that letter,” or “I will pay that debt.” And then do it. Make it irrevocable.
We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we have not yet been. Get into the habit of carefully listening to God about everything, forming the habit of finding out what He says, and then heeding it. If, when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we will know that the habit has been formed in us.
Adapted, My Utmost For His Highest, May 10
Note 1) Full passage, 2 Peter 1:3-11: By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.
In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Add to your faith virtue a generous provision of moral excellence, and to moral excellence add knowledge, and to knowledge add self-control, and to self-control add patient endurance, and to patient endurance add godliness, and to godliness add brotherly affection, and to brotherly affection add love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins. So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.