ADD TO YOUR FAITH

“…He has given to us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world cause by evil desires. For this very reason make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge…”    2 Peter 1:4, 5

There is a difference between believing and knowing. Hebrews 11:1 says that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”. Hope is not wishful thinking. It’s the picture of the cake in the recipe book that you plan to bake, and faith is the process of following the recipe to reproduce what the picture represents.

To simplify our understanding of the difference between faith and knowledge, let’s use our recipe illustration again. The first time we bake the cake, we have to trust our ingredients and our equipment, e.g., our measuring cups, spoons, scale, beater and our oven. If they are reliable, we believe that the end product will look like what the picture predicts. When we bake the cake the second time, we know that it will be a success because experience tells us that it worked the first time. We have moved from faith to knowing through our personal experience.

There is another step that comes between believing and knowing that Peter urges us to take, called “goodness”. We know that God is good, but what does that mean? Moses begged God to show him His glory (Exodus 33:18) and God responded by saying, “I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (Exodus 33:19). When God passed by Moses He proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” (Exodus 34:6, 7a).

Moses stood in God’s presence, shielded from the visible glory of God but hearing from Him a description of His character. He heard God’s Word and could say, “I know that God is good because I have heard Him proclaim His goodness in my presence.” On the strength of that revelation, Moses could ask God for mercy for His sinning people, and know that God would be merciful because that’s who He is. Moses never doubted God’s mercy again because it was forever written on his heart.

What about us? Since only God is good (Luke 18:19), we cannot add “goodness” to our character. At best, our goodness is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). We can know the goodness of God when we listen to God through His Word and His works. If we look at Jesus, we will see God’s goodness. When we know that God is good, faith will become knowledge and knowledge will fulfil our hope.