Ch 4 Goodness
“5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith, goodness”.
What in the world is goodness? Are we not all good or at least we all try to be good? You should know that we are being judged on God’s standard of goodness. Perfect goodness. So the answer is “No.” We are not good, and a majority of time we do not try to be good either.
Deep down inside we might think we want to do good. Yet, our sin nature swells up inside and we constantly battle it back. In vain. The truth is we can’t be good. No matter how hard we try. No matter how strong our will to do good is, we will ultimately fail on our own.
If we can’t “add to [our] faith goodness”, as the apostle Peter suggests, why does he suggest it in the first place? Peter is not telling us to “make every effort” in our own ability. He is calling us to add a characteristic of God Himself to our faith and to our own lives. Peter is reminding us to rely on God in every single moment of life, so that we are able to “add to [our] faith goodness” through the power of the Holy Spirit.