“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness... For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith…” 2 Peter 1:3, 5

In ancient Greece the great plays of men like Sophocles and Euripides required enormous and very expensive choruses for their productions.  Among those most highly respected in the theatre were men who lavishly gave their financial resources and their time to organized, train, supply and maintain these choruses.  They were called “choregoi”, a word which eventually was used to describe anyone who, with lavish generosity, would supply what was necessary to accomplish a task.

I like William Barclay’s translation of 2 Peter 1:5… “bend all your energy to the task of equipping your faith”.  Is it not true that the faith God has given us by His divine power was not intended to produce an initial spasm of excitement and energy followed by “chronic inertia”, as often happens?  Rather, our faith is intended to spend itself, not in the cloistered spaces of a study, a church building or “retirement” communities, but in the lavish and sold out life of service to God and man.  Faith is living dangerously and courageously, eager to show the world whose we are and for whom we live and serve.

Next week we will begin to examine those qualities I call “additives”, or Barclay calls “equipment”, necessary for a living faith.  Perhaps now would be the time to ask ourselves where we are in our own journey.  To what are we “bending all our energy” in this stage of life?  Who in the world knows whose we are, and whom would they say we live for?  May it be “all for Jesus”!

GRANDPAUSE: “Faith is not only a commitment to the promises of Christ, it is a commitment to His demands.”  -- Wm. Barclay

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