Tired but happy, I called my parents to tell them that they were now grandparents. After six hours of watching my wife struggle and work hard, I now held our first child. Joy and satisfaction filled me. I never anticipated how wonderful it is to have a child of your own.

But I was also humbled and uncertain. I felt ignorant and insufficient, without experience. Like millions of parents before me, I counted his fingers and toes to make sure they were all there. But how would I know that this son was healthy and normal?

I came to cherish a book provided by my mother that described the growth of a child. Every few months I would take out that book and check my son’s height and weight against the numbers given there. I would consider my son’s social, intellectual, and physical development against what was described in that one book. Because that book provided a summary of healthy growth throughout childhood, I gained increased confidence that I could raise my son intelligently. If he deviated from the common growth patterns of other children, I could detect and address it. If he grew normally, I could rejoice in it.

My son never seemed to care about that book. He didn’t need to read about a two-year-old’s expected weight and then set it as a goal. It never mattered to him what was considered normal—he just grew. The only value in that old book was to provide a template of what is normal for those observing and nurturing my son. The book never helped or guided him directly. This experience helped me understand some Bible statements that I puzzled over for many years.

The Bible provides us with some passages that summarize the natural growth patterns of a Christian’s spiritual experience. Studying those passages and mechanically trying to match their description will not cause us to grow into spiritually mature people. Rather, these passages are meant to be used by those helping us judge the healthfulness of our Christian growth. They are also to be used by us in our self-assessment, after we are mature enough as Christians to be able to examine ourselves.

“[2 Peter 1:5–7 quoted.] All these successive steps are not to be kept before the mind’s eye, and counted as you start; but fixing the eye upon Jesus, with an eye single to the glory of God, you will make advancement. You cannot reach the full measure of the stature of Christ in a day, and you would sink in despair could you behold all the difficulties that must be met and overcome. You have Satan to contend with, and he will seek by every possible device to attract your mind from Christ.

“But we must meet all obstacles placed in our way, and overcome them one at a time. If we overcome the first difficulty, we shall be stronger to meet the next, and at every effort will become better able to make advancement. By looking to Jesus, we may be overcomers. It is by fastening our eyes on the difficulties and shrinking from earnest battle for the right, that we become weak and faithless.”1

One of these passages that God provided to help us assess our moral and spiritual progress is given in the opening verses of Peter’s second letter. Peter teaches that growth in Christian life comes from knowing and admiring God (1:3). He adds that we are assisted in that growth that comes from looking to Jesus by knowing and depending on the promises that Jesus provided (verse 4).

Then Peter overviews what that growth will look like in what has famously come to be called Peter’s ladder. This summary is not a description of human development generally. Peter is not talking of our growth in knowledge or patience as carnal humans, for a baby has to learn patience before his or her head fills with knowledge. And many of us gain years of knowledge without any growth in faith or virtue. Peter’s ladder does not follow the order of childhood development outlined in my mother’s book. But it is exactly what occurs in spiritual development.

We are born spiritually when we first surrender our proud heart to God. It is a moment of faith. And immediately God forgives us and provides real virtue. This virtue is not that carnally created thing that seems like virtue. It is real obedience to God. God Himself is the one that starts us up this ladder of growth, for He is the only one that can add virtue to our faith. Soon after, we start discovering all sorts of spiritual truths.

For those who appreciate spiritual things, seeing a new Christian born is as beautiful as seeing the birth of my son. Hearing the testimonies of surrender to the love and to the demands of our beloved God is awe-inspiring. We are filled with joy at the fresh evidence of the miracle that only God can do—change the human mind.

Newly born Christians can be as excited as little children. Ideas fill them. It is as though light comes through the darkness of human confusion. They begin to experience the growth in knowledge that Peter predicted. The divine Spirit is guiding into truth (John 14:16, 17, 26; 16:7–15). Growing in knowledge is a sign of being a healthy Christian. And it is wonderful. It can be more exciting than kindergarten. We begin to grow in moral and spiritual knowledge. And that spiritual knowledge explains secular knowledge.

This growing knowledge is one of the signs that we are following Jesus, just as continual growth in virtue and in faith are signs of spiritual health. If we are not growing in spiritual knowledge, then we are sick Christians. But as the Christian matures, our knowledge, virtue, and faith are tempered by temperance.

When temperance and moderation do not govern our growth in knowledge, we become unpleasant or worse. We become spiritual know-it-alls. Sometimes Christians become so excited with growing in knowledge that they lose sight of Jesus. They run away from Him and start fighting with their fellow Christians over who is more right (Matthew 24:48–51). Watching the cantankerous wars that sometimes break out among Christians is frustrating, for new Christians can be the most bigoted people you will ever meet. They are certain that their new understanding of the inspired writings is correct. They can become infatuated with doctrines and how to present them. In the process of championing truth, they betray it, for their attitudes are sometimes exactly the opposite of the doctrines they brag about. With the fanatical zeal of a demon, these misguided Christians go about to advocate the truth of God. They seem almost unconscious of the damage to God’s reputation they are causing all around them.

I know about this, painfully, because I was once one of God’s self-appointed warriors. One of the important moments in my own growth as a Christian was an argument I had early in my experience. I was visiting with a friend who discredited one of God’s prophets. I spent almost a whole afternoon standing up for God as zealously as I knew how. I argued passionately and with determination. I was certain that I was correct and my friend was incorrect. But when I went home and replayed the conversation, I had to admit that my friend had less of an unchristian attitude than I did. I puzzled and prayed about what had happened. How was I so angry when I believed I was so right? Why did I behave as though I had to do all the fighting for truth, and God wouldn’t do anything to defend Himself? How could I claim to be right when my attitude suggested I was wrong? I asked myself many hard questions that night that would take years for me to answer.

I had to learn how to be temperate with ideas. Knowledge should nurture, not carelessly wound.

I had to learn that God was in charge of defending His own truth. I had no responsibility to force anyone to believe what is true.

I had to learn that it was the work of the Holy Spirit to change hearts. Without that invisible power I cannot change my own mind, never mind anyone else’s.

I had to learn that my knowledge was for my own personal growth and not a weapon with which to attack others. I could share how that knowledge helped me. I was never justified in using it to trick or force anyone else.

Jesus asked me to permit my life to shine in this world of confusion. But it was not my knowledge that was the source of the world’s light. It is my actions. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16, emphasis added). I am not the light of the world. God’s success in me is the light of the world. I do not shine. He shines through me. God’s choice to use the church for a medium to communicate with the world never gives me any justification for pushing my own opinions or beliefs on other people. I am God’s servant. He is not my assistant.

Just because some of us have become fanatical at times in our use of knowledge does not mean that this growth in knowledge is bad. On the contrary, it is good. God Himself is the one who adds it; just as He adds temperance.

We need God’s grace to live temperately just as we need His wisdom to use knowledge wisely. We live in an age that understands growing in secular knowledge. Mandatory education forces every child to grow in knowledge at a certain pace every year until he or she reaches adulthood. But we do not understand temperance. Temperance is something that the western world partially threw away in the 1960s and 1970s with a campaign focused on personal pleasure. Temperance has now been relegated to the military, to professional athletes, and to “other” people. The average person looks for ways to skip it as much as possible. Thousands long for the work week to finish so they can be intemperate.

Since society has less guidance in temperance, we need God’s guidance even more in this subject. For many Christians the transition from growing in knowledge to growing in temperance added to knowledge is difficult. We can use the skills from school to grow in spiritual knowledge. But how do you add temperance to your life?

The simple answer is that we can’t. Sinful humanity needs God’s wisdom and power to provide temperance. For temperance does not come from trying harder to be better. The solution is not more will power.

Here is exactly where many Christians lose their Christian experience. Growth in knowledge teaches them that they should be temperate, for example, in their eating habits. So they exercise will power and change their diet. They eat less sugar or less snacks or less of the harmful oils. But this change in behavior is not temperance. It is not from God. It is a carnal human struggling to obey God without God’s help.

This is not adding temperance to knowledge, virtue, and faith. It is adding burdens so heavy they cannot be born.

This is not to say that these Christians should change their diet. They need to change their desires. When Ellen White decided to eat whole wheat bread, she hated it. She did not think she could eat it. But she was determined that her desires would change. She refused to eat anything until she was willing to eat whole wheat bread.2

When we are willing to refuse to do what is wrong and pray for God to give us the desire to do what is right, He changes what we want. This is a prayer He will always answer, if we are only earnest and persistent.

Many are losing their salvation by abandoning God’s grace and relying on their own efforts; but because it is the right thing to do, they move on oblivious that they are doing it the wrong way.

Temperance is self-government. It is trusting God to change your appetites and passions, until you always want to do what is right. “‘Every man that striveth for the mastery,’ [Paul] declared, ‘is temperate in all things’ (1 Corinthians 9:4). The runners [in the ancient Olympic races] put aside every indulgence that would tend to weaken the physical powers, and by severe and continuous discipline trained their muscles to strength and endurance, that when the day of the contest should arrive, they might put the heaviest tax upon their powers. How much more important that the Christian, whose eternal interests are at stake, bring appetite and passion under subjection to reason and the will of God! Never must [the Christian] allow his attention to be diverted by amusements, luxuries, or ease. All his habits and passions must be brought under the strictest discipline. Reason, enlightened by the teachings of God’s word and guided by His Spirit, must hold the reins of control.”3

In our age of antagonism to temperance, this is harder to understand. Paul does not tell us to abandon our desires. His example of the athletes demonstrates that he intended us to strengthen and discipline our passions to the highest possible point of success. We are not to destroy our desires. We are to bring our strong feelings to God to have Him clean them of every taint of evil and return them to us for holy use. We are to govern those now sanctified impulses by our rational mind as it is guided directly by the Holy Spirit.

When Americans used horses instead of horseless carriages for transportation, most of them knew a lot about horses. Some horses have a lot more spirit or passion than others. The spirited horses are harder to train. But once trained they accomplish a lot more.

So it is with us humans. Some of us have a lot more will power than others. We are all passionate about different things. But when all of our passions are surrendered to God and guided by the directions of His word and the influence of His Spirit, those passions help us accomplish a lot more as individuals, as a church, and as a society.

“In the family circle and in the church we should place Christian temperance on an elevated platform. It should be a living, working element, reforming habits, dispositions, and characters. Intemperance lies at the foundation of all the evil in our world. . . .

“Those who in ancient times ran for a prize realized the importance of temperate habits, and how much more should we, who are running a race for a heavenly crown. We should put forth every effort to overcome evil.

“At all times and on all occasions it requires moral courage to adhere to the principles of strict temperance.

“Remember that you are daily weaving for yourself a web of habits. . . . The better you observe the laws of health, the more clearly can you discern temptations, and resist them, and the more clearly can you discern the value of eternal things.”4

“If we could realize that the habits we form in this life will affect our eternal interests, that our eternal destiny depends upon strictly temperate habits, we would work to the point of strict temperance in eating and drinking. By our example and personal effort we may be the means of saving many souls from the degradation of intemperance, crime, and death.”5

If we do not demonstrate growth in knowledge and temperance, then we need to consider whether we still trust God and are His children. Just because we once gave ourselves to God does not mean that we are always His children. Peter went from being a mirror of God’s truth to a spokesperson of Satan inside of twenty minutes (Matthew 16:13–28). God does not reject us, but we can reject Him.

Whenever we discover that we are not growing according to the template laid out by Peter, the solution is the same—growth in Christ that comes from looking to Him. All that pertains to life and godliness still comes from the knowledge of God Himself. This is not merely a theoretical knowledge. The devil himself knows all about God, and it does him no good. But knowing God through experience and letting Him influence and guide us is the way of life eternal.

“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, who connects earth with heaven, 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. . . . 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. . . .

“It is no easy matter to gain the priceless treasure of eternal life. No one can do this and drift with the current of the world. He must come out from the world and be separate and touch not the unclean. No one can act like a worldling without being carried down by the current of the world. No one will make any upward progress without persevering effort. He who would overcome must hold fast to Christ. He must not look back, but keep the eye ever upward, gaining one grace after another. Individual vigilance is the price of safety. Satan is playing the game of life for your soul. Swerve not to his side a single inch, lest he gain advantage over you.

“If we ever reach heaven, it will be by linking our souls to Christ, leaning upon Him, and cutting loose from the world, its follies and enchantments. There must be on our part a spiritual cooperation with the heavenly intelligences. We must believe and work and pray and watch and wait.”6

I was puzzled by Peter’s ladder since I didn’t know how to climb it. I’ve learned that no human can. We do not grow by trying; just as we do not grow taller by trying. God adds each quality in our life; He carries us up this ladder.

But God is kind to give us these words so we can—under the guidance of the Holy Spirit—reflect upon our own Christian experience and observe whether or not we are healthy, growing Christians. He also gives us these words, so that we can recognize if we have fallen off Peter’s ladder and need to pray earnestly that God will pick us back up and continue to add His knowledge and temperance to the virtue and faith He is already giving each one of us.