Make Every Effort to Confirm Your Calling

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:10-11 NIV

The Bible teaches us that our salvation is a matter of God’s grace. There is nothing I can do to earn this salvation (Eph. 2:8-9). He gives it to me freely. And I enter into His salvation through faith, not by anything I do.

But as a believer, is there anything I must do in order to stay saved? Some will object to this question on the grounds that salvation cannot be lost. And I know others who will provide a list of things that we must do, or become, in order to maintain our salvation. Peter does not definitively answer that question here. But he does make it clear that more is expected of us than simply claiming we are saved, and that nothing can change that.

Make Every Effort

He tells us to make every effort to confirm our calling and election. And that if we do that, we will not stumble and will be richly welcomed into the eternal kingdom of our Lord. Regardless of how you might understand stumbling and rich welcome in this verse, it is clear that something is expected of us. We are to make every effort. To make every effort to grow in faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love (2 Pet. 1:5-7). If I am making every effort to grow in my faith and walk with the Lord, then I do not need to fear the potential of stumbling along the way. And I can look forward to hearing “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21) when this life is over.