What it means is, our change; we become changed, we become different. We become like Jesus. How do we do that? It comes about when we hold the word of God in our heart, and it calls us to persevere in these other things. The promises of God anchor your soul and keep you going.
A fourth provision God has made for us is the five-fold ministry gifts. They're given to process, to bring us to maturity.
Ephesians 4:11-14 tells us that the five-fold ministry gifts are given, that we would grow to the maturity of Christ, that we'd be no longer children. Five-fold ministry gifts… they're teaching, their impartations help you in the journey. That's why the church needs it so badly, or it remains immature. Many churches that are a pastoral – everyone is immature. No maturity, no growth, very little knowledge of God.
Finally, life experiences. God uses life experiences to develop these qualities in you.
James 1:2 – “Count it joy when you fall into various trials, because the trying of your faith produces patience. Let patience has its perfect work, you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing”.
He's talking about difficult experiences, delays, temptations, betrayals, diverse opposition, times when God seems a long way off… but it works or accomplishes endurance in our heart and life, and that's a key to growing. Then finally, we finish up with these things then, the promises that God makes.
If these things are yours and abound, here's what it'll mean… It means you'll be fruitful. You'll be fruitful. You will be neither barren, nor unfruitful. God is looking for fruit in your life - godly character, activity of engaging in His kingdom and serving people. He wants you to be fruitful. Jesus came looking for the fruitful tree, so God wants to see fruit in our life, wants to see us grow up, produce something with our life and our gifts.
Secondly, stability. He says: if you will be more diligent, to make your call and election sure - if you do these things, you'll never stumble. If you want to stay stable in your life (never stumble) - that word ‘to stumble’ means: to fall down; to descend from a higher place to a lower place; to be overcome by fear or grief or demons; to lose your authority; to be removed out of your assignment.
Here is His promise… You'll never fall out of your place in God, if you put those things into practice consistently. Israel is the example set before us. They did not grow; they did not change; and then they all fell, and no one entered what they were supposed to - it's the same condition.
2 Peter 1:11 – “If you do these things, if they abound in you, you're diligent in them, you work on them, you live them out, then so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”.
Abundant means: huge quantity; overflowing with wealth and honour. We've already seen that an abundant entrance to the kingdom was associated closely with the second coming of Jesus Christ, with the First Resurrection; so, they're all synonymous. An abundant entrance to the kingdom means I will attain the First Resurrection – I will enter the coming kingdom with glory and honour and stature.
That's going to vary from one person to another; but nevertheless, you can choose whether you have an ‘abundant’ entrance, or whether you barely get in, and have nothing that qualifies for reward. The presence of these qualities in abundance guarantees us an entrance to that coming kingdom. Some will be more abundant than others. There will be different degrees of reward, but you and I choose whether we will grow and mature, and let Christ be formed in us.
Galatians 4:19 - “I travail in prayer until Christ be formed in your life, and so that's our desire is that in our journey”.
It's not that we're busy doing things, but something is happening, in what we're becoming. We're becoming more like Jesus. We're becoming more godly, more consistent, more upright, more courageous, more persevering. We're becoming more loving and more generous and more kind. These qualities are growing and increasing in our life.