2 Peter 1:8

For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"It is the necessity of possessing these things enumerated in 2 Peter 1:5-7 and to be achieved at least in part by human effort, that is here stressed."[26]

If ... How frequently this word appears in the New Testament! suggesting here that in the last analysis, there is a vital and necessary contribution that man himself must make in the direction of his salvation, but in the sense of doing those things without which not even God can save his soul.