Are you making your call and election sure?

A hopeful beginning needs to be followed up. In 2 Peter 1:10 the Apostle Peter exhorted us to “make your call and election sure.”

“When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” Matthew 12:43-45.

The man in this parable received great grace to put his house in order after it was undoubtedly ravaged by the impure spirit. Think what a blessing it must have been to experience the new atmosphere in the house in which the old, impure spirit of darkness was cleansed out and a new, pure spirit of light radiated. Unfortunately, this did not last. After a time, he neglected to make the house safe and let it stand empty, and so it became easy game for the host of wickedness in the heavenly places. He had forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

How to make your call and election sure

“But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and in brotherly kindness love to all men. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” 2 Peter 1:5-9.

Peter understood, from personal experience, that he couldn’t just stand still and savor the glory that radiates from the body of Christ. There were battles that had to be fought, enemies that had to be conquered, and a life that had to be laid hold of. His calling and election were not assured; therefore, he exhorts in the next verse to be even more diligent to “make your call and election sure.” If we are not actively occupied with making our call and election sure, our future and our “house” are in danger.

“Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble.” 2 Peter 1:10.

There are certain signs of neglect: a house falls into disrepair over time and can end up being torn down. Peter quotes a proverb concerning those who have known the way of righteousness and then have turned away from the holy commandment: “‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and ‘a sow having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.’” 2 Peter 2:21-22. What a terrible end after such a hopeful beginning!

Let us follow the faithful examples that we have: “And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” Hebrews 3:5-6.