SURVIVING OR THRIVING?

While watching television the other day, I saw a commercial that caught my attention. I don’t remember exactly what it was about except that it was geared toward the elderly, but one comment (actually a question) stood out – “Are you surviving or thriving?” In other words, are you just living/going through the motions or are you active and continuing to be productive. This got me wondering about our own lives as Christians. Are we surviving or are we thriving?

The Bible is full of verses that encourage us to continue to learn, grow and be active members within the body of Christ. Take note of just a few. As the apostle Peter brings his second letter to its close, he encourages those of “like precious faith” (2 Peter 1:1) to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). The apostle Paul tells those in Corinth to “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). And James reminds us to be “doers of the word and not hearers only” (James 1:22).

Let’s make our “calling and election sure” by “giving all diligence” to add to our 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 we’ll do so and abound, we’ll “be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:5-10).