“Are You Sure?”

Sam Stringer

Dec 24, 2024

Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these

things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the

everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:10-11

Time will tell. Oh, I wish more people understood that Christianity is not seen in a moment, like a

snapshot, but it’s seen over a lifetime, like a movie. Now, some movies are like five seconds long,

because yes, some people really do get saved right before they die. Yet, there’s so many that claim Christ

for decades on end and because of the seductive nature of a cheap faith, they’re quite content to simply

say, “Well, I accepted Jesus at a much younger age so I’m good. I’m on my way to glory.” Notice that that

attitude is not actually the attitude of Peter, or other disciples for that matter. Sobriety in the faith means a

willingness to keep returning to the mirror and questioning whether that person really is born again. Not

that we should live doubting a legitimate faith, but we should be examining ourselves (as Paul challenges

the Corinthians) to see whether we really are in the faith. Some are faking it and some are faithing it.

Just going to church, thinking highly of religious leaders, associating yourself with certain doctrines and

so forth, missions trips, giving money and all of that, none of it serves to console the heart that one is truly

born again. We may try to convince ourselves of it by looking at our practices, but what the Bible says to

us is that Christians keep following Jesus. There’s a stark difference between being committed to church,

for instance, and being committed to Christ. There’s a huge difference between being a moralist and a

person who is passionate about Christ and knowing and serving Him.

I wrote a devotional on 2 Peter 1 not long ago, speaking about building a cake with only a few ingredients

when you needed all of them for the cake. You might remember it. Nobody churns out a mature Christian

by haphazardly throwing this and that in there and hoping for the best; no, they must do what vv. 5-9 tell

us:

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to

knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly

kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither

barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is

shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

The tie-in to vv. 10-11 is that there is a correlation between pursuing a growing Christ-likeness and a

diligence to make one’s calling and election sure. People who make little of growing in their faith rightly

should struggle to ascertain confidence in their calling and election. The dissonance created between

wanting a good end and not following the Scriptures along the way should be a cause for alarm, and yet,

there’s still plenty of folks who would still rather have it their way, but it may not be their way in the end.

Are you sure that you’re one of God’s children, forgiven of your sins, alive in Christ, on your way to

eternity with Him? The passage tells us that we must be all the more diligent to make sure of this, never

assuming that there hasn’t been so many before us who have walked for a season only to abandon it all

in the end. Now, there may be disagreements on this point, but as I read the Bible, my impression would

be not that someone lost their salvation, but that they never were saved in the first place. They were

reformed by their efforts for a season but never transformed by the work of God. I must be confident in

God’s forgiveness, no doubt, but I must also be sober about who I am and whether I really do believe the

things in the Bible, and whether I’m willing to submit to them at that. It’s a very important thing to consider,

and given that Peter makes this as a pretty early point in 2 Peter, it’s nothing marginal. I hope you are

blessed as you seek Him, and serious as you move though this life. It all goes so fast. Be brave as you

follow Him.

Sam Stringer

“Are You Sure?”

Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these

things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the

everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:10-11

Time will tell. Oh, I wish more people understood that Christianity is not seen in a moment, like a

snapshot, but it’s seen over a lifetime, like a movie. Now, some movies are like five seconds long,

because yes, some people really do get saved right before they die. Yet, there’s so many that claim Christ

for decades on end and because of the seductive nature of a cheap faith, they’re quite content to simply

say, “Well, I accepted Jesus at a much younger age so I’m good. I’m on my way to glory.” Notice that that

attitude is not actually the attitude of Peter, or other disciples for that matter. Sobriety in the faith means a

willingness to keep returning to the mirror and questioning whether that person really is born again. Not

that we should live doubting a legitimate faith, but we should be examining ourselves (as Paul challenges

the Corinthians) to see whether we really are in the faith. Some are faking it and some are faithing it.

Just going to church, thinking highly of religious leaders, associating yourself with certain doctrines and

so forth, missions trips, giving money and all of that, none of it serves to console the heart that one is truly

born again. We may try to convince ourselves of it by looking at our practices, but what the Bible says to

us is that Christians keep following Jesus. There’s a stark difference between being committed to church,

for instance, and being committed to Christ. There’s a huge difference between being a moralist and a

person who is passionate about Christ and knowing and serving Him.

I wrote a devotional on 2 Peter 1 not long ago, speaking about building a cake with only a few ingredients

when you needed all of them for the cake. You might remember it. Nobody churns out a mature Christian

by haphazardly throwing this and that in there and hoping for the best; no, they must do what vv. 5-9 tell

us:

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to

knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly

kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither

barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is

shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

The tie-in to vv. 10-11 is that there is a correlation between pursuing a growing Christ-likeness and a

diligence to make one’s calling and election sure. People who make little of growing in their faith rightly

should struggle to ascertain confidence in their calling and election. The dissonance created between

wanting a good end and not following the Scriptures along the way should be a cause for alarm, and yet,

there’s still plenty of folks who would still rather have it their way, but it may not be their way in the end.

Are you sure that you’re one of God’s children, forgiven of your sins, alive in Christ, on your way to

eternity with Him? The passage tells us that we must be all the more diligent to make sure of this, never

assuming that there hasn’t been so many before us who have walked for a season only to abandon it all

in the end. Now, there may be disagreements on this point, but as I read the Bible, my impression would

be not that someone lost their salvation, but that they never were saved in the first place. They were

reformed by their efforts for a season but never transformed by the work of God. I must be confident in

God’s forgiveness, no doubt, but I must also be sober about who I am and whether I really do believe the

things in the Bible, and whether I’m willing to submit to them at that. It’s a very important thing to consider,

and given that Peter makes this as a pretty early point in 2 Peter, it’s nothing marginal. I hope you are

blessed as you seek Him, and serious as you move though this life. It all goes so fast. Be brave as you

follow Him.

Sam Stringer

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by

permission. All rights reserved.