Give Diligence to Make Your Calling and Election Sure

What is to be made sure?
1. ?Calling:? God calls each elect to conscious faith during their life time out of darkness into God?s light (I Peter 2:9).
2. ?Election:? God elects before the foundation of the world in His eternal plan (Eph. 1:5,6; II Thess. 1:13; Rom. 9:11,12).
3. We are to make sure that we know we are called and elect.
Peter calls his readers to ?give diligence to make their calling and election sure.?
1. ?Wherefore the more.?
2. Implications.
  1. The idea is that they (and we) are to make sure for themselves or make sure in their own consciousness.
  2. Note that this diligence does not refer to mere outward works
3. How do we make sure to ourselves that God has called and elected us?
  1. Assurance flows from the diligence of adding to our faith the seven virtues.
  2. And assurance arises from the presence of the four infallible fruit of election pointed out in God?s Word.
The result of this diligence (?if ye do these things?).
1. First, ?ye shall never fall,? i.e., stumble.
2. Second, we may know our future at the end: ?so an entrance shall be ministered unto you?.?
3. To this end Peter commits himself to keep them ?always in remembrance? (12-15).
4. The sense and certainty of our calling and election afford God?s children with four important virtues.