Productivity

Growing up, we have all heard our teachers say at some point that we need to be productive. That means actually working in class and not goofing off on our phones and other electronic devices. When you are actually productive, you can get so much done like getting your homework done before it is actually due. And just as our teachers wants us to be productive in class, God wants us to be productive in our lives. 2 Peter 1:5-8 says, "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. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now that's a lot so let’s break it down into steps.

Faith to Goodness-Faith is believing that Jesus died for you sins so that you may live with him in eternity. To add goodness to your faith, that could be reading your bible, or praying to God more than once a month. 

Goodness to Knowledge-When you are being good at reading your bible then you start to acquire the knowledge of who God is and what he says is right and wrong. 

Knowledge to Self-Control-When you get the knowledge of what is right and what’s wrong, you are able to stop yourself doing things you know are wrong which builds self-control. 

Self-Control to Perseverance-As you start to gain more and more self control, the harder that it will get and if you preserver through than your perseverance will grow.

Perseverance to Godliness-When you preserver, it would begin to show in everyday life, because you could be slow to anger, or you think before you act. You are then reflecting God more and more that you have godliness.

Godliness to Mutual Affection-When you are reflection God, you don't hate your enemies but you are able to hold a mutual affection, where you don't hate them, but you aren't the best of friends with them.

Mutual Affection to Love-The last step is having the ability to go beyond just being able to stand someone, to actually loving them. God is love and this is the end goal where we all want to reach. We want to be able to love anyone no matter who they are or what they have done.

Now let’s think realistically for a minute. Think of one person that you hate most. Do you ever think that you could love that person. Most of us would say "No" and I get that. But when we walk through all these steps, eventually we will be able to get to a point where we can love that person. 

Now we are looking at the list that I have laid out, and it is really long. And as we do with our homework, we say that we will get to it later. But putting this off to later isn't going to work. This is lifelong thing that we work on and we can't keep putting it off because sooner or later, hopefully later, we will be dead, and we would have lost the opportunity to develop into the person who can love anyone. The last verse describes that if we have these qualities in "increasing measure" then we will be able to be efficient and productive in our knowledge of God. Increasing means that it will never stop, so right know we need to get a head start of increasing our qualities of the things on the list above. It may seem difficult or a really long process, so I suggest with just starting with the first quality, "faithfulness to love." Once you get the first step then the next step will happen and so forth. All you need to do is to get started.