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“Add To Your Faith | Perseverance and Wild Fluctuations”
Categories: Add To Your Faith | 2025
If I were to ask you if you had self-control, then you would probably give me an answer somewhere in the neighborhood of, “It depends on what we’re talking about.” Our ability, our willingness, to control ourselves fluctuates based on what trials and temptations we face. Maybe you have gluttony under control, but when it comes to gossip you struggle. Maybe you’ve got a handle on sexual immorality, but drinking tends to be a problem. Maybe you do a good job at keeping the rules and living out your faith, but you wrestle with forgiving those who sin against you and judging those who fall short or aren’t as far along.
Do you have self-control? Well, it depends…
That’s why Peter tells us to add patience or perseverance to our self-control (II Peter 1:6). That word in II Peter 1:6 might read different based on your translation. NASB reads “perseverance,” CSB reads “endurance,” and ESV reads “steadfastness.” All of those words are translated from the Greek word, “Hypomone,” a word that means, “a patient enduring” or “a staying under.” I love that concept. What Peter is advising here is that we learn how to stay in our place. He wants us to be the kind of people who stay in our place regardless of what happens.
It seems to me that in many cases the life of a Christian is characterized by wild fluctuation. This month we’re on fire for the Lord, but next month we drop off. When I’m tempted by sexual immorality, I do okay, but when I’m tempted by alcohol I tend to fail. When life is going well, I control myself, but if things are a little rocky, self-control goes out the window. That’s often the way it goes, isn’t it?
Peter encourages us to add patience, perseverance, steadfastness to our faith. We need to be people who stay in our places no matter what life throws at us. We need to level out those wild fluctuations. Our spiritual lives should be characterized not by flashes of spiritual brilliance followed by devastating failure, but by constant loyalty, devotion, and faithfulness.
For the next few weeks, we’ll talk about to add perseverance to our faith.
- Jonathan Banning
