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Climbing Peter’s Ladder, March 17
Beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue
knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance
patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly
kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
2 Peter 1:5-7
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Point the youth to Peter’s ladder of eight rounds, and place their feet,
not on the highest round, but on the lowest, and with earnest solicitation
urge them to climb to the very top.
Christ ... is the ladder. The base is planted firmly on the earth in His
humanity; the topmost round reaches to the throne of God in His divinity.
The humanity of Christ embraces fallen humanity, while His divinity lays
hold upon the throne of God. We are saved by climbing round after round
of the ladder, looking to Christ, clinging to Christ, mounting step by step to
the height of Christ, so that He is made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. Faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance,
patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity are the rounds of this
ladder. All these graces are to be manifested in the Christian character;
and “if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be
ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
You are not to think that you must wait until you have perfected one
grace before cultivating another. No; they are to grow up together...; every
day that you live, you can be perfecting the blessed attributes fully revealed
in the character of Christ....
Do not become overwhelmed with the great amount of work you must do
in your lifetime, for you are not required to do it all at once. Let every power
of your being go to each day’s work, improve each precious opportunity,
appreciate the helps that God gives you, and make advancement up the
ladder of progress step by step. Remember that you are to live but one day
at a time, that God has given you one day, and heavenly records will show
how you have valued its privileges and opportunities. May you so improve
every day given you of God, that at last you may hear the Master say, “Well
done, thou good and faithful servant.”
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