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2 Peter 1:7 “and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.”

God invites the entire world to come to Him, find salvation in His Son, and enjoy abundant and eternal life (John 3:16). Some heed and obey the call and are added to God’s elect people. But not everyone accepts His amazingly generous and gracious invitation, and even some of those who initially accept the call reject the Lord’s calling and election (Matt. 13:19ff) through disobedience, distraction, complacency, persecution, or neglect. And this is precisely why Peter was concerned to write to disciples of the first century.

So we’ve been tracing through Peter’s list of virtues (2 Peter 1:5-7), traits that need our attention, our diligence, and our nurture—because we all need to take care that we don’t stumble, so that “entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied” to us (v. 11). And now one last virtue is left on Peter’s list to add to our faith: love.

The Greek word here is agape, the Greeks’ highest and noblest word for love. Now some Greek linguists have argued that some of the words for love in the Greek language, including agape, are interchangeable. This could be true in some contexts, but when agape is right next to another word for love, brotherly love, philadelphia, we can be certain that the higher and nobler meaning of agape is what Peter had in mind.

Here is a love that is much more than a human emotion, more than a short-term flutter of the heart, more than sexual attraction, more than family loyalty. Here is a word that involves the mind, but not in a cold and calculating “Vulcan” sort of way. Rather it is a decision—sometimes involving great courage, sometimes operating against one’s own self-interest—in which an evaluation of what is truly in another person’s best interest is made and acted upon, regardless of the feelings of the moment.

This is a kind of love that is beyond an affection for those near and dear to us; it is one that we must have for all mankind. It is the only kind of love that exists that can be genuinely exercised to benefit neighbors far and near, enemies, persecutors, irritating people, the foreigner, and the lost of all mankind. It is a decision to act in the best interest of both the Jew and Gentile, those in authority and those of humble circumstance, the black and white, the young and old, the educated and uneducated, the citizen and the criminal, the sinful and the moral, the religious and the irreligious, and those with whom we agree and with whom we strongly disagree.

And not only must we choose this love and exercise it; but remember, we need to be increasing in it, too (v. 8). So, how do we do that? Here’s a suggestion…

One of my favorite passages about love is Ephesians 3:17-19:

“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”

Did you notice? We’re encouraged to use our imagination to try to grasp God’s and Christ’s love, as if it were something concrete. What a challenge, because what an immense love it is!

• breadth—a love so wide as to include all men, including every sinner, of every era.
• length—a love for mankind, seen in God’s plan of salvation, conceived from before the beginning of time, winding through all of history, and even trailing off beyond time into eternity.
• height—a love so noble, so holy, that it was able to rise above the righteous fury caused by the offense of sin, and offer grace to unworthy sinners anyway.
• depth—a love so humbly serving that it would wash feet, touch lepers, and die an excruciating, humiliating death for every sinner who would believe.

Now, while Paul impresses and encourages us with Christ’s love, this passage also gives a challenge to us. In John 13:34 Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” OK, so here’s a path to increase in agape love: aim to attain the width, length, height, and depth of the love of the Savior. That’ll stretch anyone—for a lifetime.

2 Peter 1:6 “and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness,”

One of the dangers of discipleship over over a span of years is that the disciple can—if he’s not careful—become a little too comfortable with his or her level of maturity. Though we might never actually say that we’re satisfied with “good enough”, we might grow weary with putting out the sort of effort that Paul describes in Philippians 3:13, 14, “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Why keep pressing on? Paul and other inspired writers of the New Testament knew that if we’re not growing spiritually, we are likely to be getting weaker spiritually—and growing spiritually weaker could end in falling away and losing our soul. And this is exactly why Peter writes, “Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble” (2 Peter 1:10).

So, we’ve been talking about a series of virtues—found in 2 Peter 1:5ff—that Peter urges upon us, things in which we can grow and which will help to safeguard our souls. We looked at diligence, moral excellence, knowledge, and self-control. This time perseverance.

The Greek word for perseverance here is hupomenè. It’s meaning is rooted in Spartan military tactics, describing a heroic volunteer who would stay behind in a retreat to protect his comrades to his dying breath. This heroic role, then, became the word for a courageous sort of patience—greater than ordinary patience or “long suffering”. And it became the preferred word in the New Testament for Christian endurance. And here, Peter encourages us to obtain (v.8), practice (v.10), and increase (v.8) in it—along with the other virtues.

“OK, so, how do we obtain it?” Obtaining the virtue of perseverance begins with a real faith in the God who rescues. Quintessential examples of perseverance can be found in Daniel’s friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when they said, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:17, 18). Listen to that faith! Such faith provides the confidence and strength that are at the core of Christian perseverance.

“But, how do we practice it?” That comes with recognizing the battle. Now, while we may not be required to face the same flames as S,M,&A, we do live in a world with plenty of opposition to God’s way, plenty of opportunity to exercise a courageous “standing firm” (1  Cor. 16:13; Eph. 6:11-14; Php. 4:1; and others) against the wrong and standing up for what’s right. The battles are engaged when someone entices you compromise your morals, when someone speaks against the Lord, when others argue for things that the Bible says are wrong, or when the temptation is strong to go along to get along. The world has tried to “train us” to  just passively put up with the persecution, but the Lord calls us hupomenè. Recognize and use opportunities to be courageous for the Lord.

“But, how do we increase in it?” In the regular practice of hupomenè and getting practiced at standing firm in unashamed and courageous perseverance, we learn and we grow in it. The more you are trained in it, the better your responses will be to anti-Christian persecution and opposition, the greater your trust in the Lord will grow, the easier it will be to resist the forces in the world that seek to conform us to the world’s ideas, morality, and way of thinking. Think of it like self-defense training—as you train and practice, the right “move” become more instinctual and perhaps leads to combinations of moves, leading to expertise, etc.

Why does perseverance matter in making our calling and election sure? Mere long suffering just hopes to hang on long enough. But perseverers are fortified with courage and defiance of the wrong. Such Christians do more than merely endure their beating; they courageously stand against the “world forces of this darkness” (Eph. 6:12), knowing in Whom they’ve believed and knowing His ability to give the victory, when they stand firm!