It is easy to drift into the mindset that is willing to become virtuous, provided the virtues drift our way. We would welcome them, we think, provided they took the initiative, and came to us. But the Scriptures tell us to pursue godliness. In the game of virtue tag, we are “it.” Righteousness, godliness, faith, love, and all the rest of their friends, must be chased.
This requires two things—a decision to do it, and a willingness to expend the effort involved. Some are nervous about talking this way, because they believe it might encourage Christians to think that we are saved by grace through faith, but that we have to finish the job of sanctification through some kind of autonomous human effort.
But this is not an exhortation to some kind of works righteousness, because the decision to do it, and the effort expended are themselves both gifts of God. But one thing God does not and cannot do is simultaneously give His gifts and refrain from giving His gifts. If He is giving the grace of true moral effort, the recipients experience that grace of expending real moral effort.
Not wanting God to give us this gift is a sin of omission. We want to be baptized and safe, but we also want to let sleeping dogs lie. But God tells us to stir ourselves, strengthen our weak knees and feeble hands, to gird up the loins of our mind, and to run after His righteousness, just ahead of us.