BRIDGING THE GAP: Virtue

 “…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 to brotherly kindness love. 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 shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. 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 1:1-10

Growth doesn’t come unknowingly or unconsciously. The devil is scheming every day to cause you to stumble. Very few people are actively working to ensure that they are growing, maturing. The fact that you are getting older in age doesn’t mean you are maturing.

The summary of this text is that, if we will not fail, we have to be very deliberate in growing and developing. Thus, if things will not deteriorate in your life, if you will not miss ‘well done, thou good and faithful servant’, you have to be very deliberate. If you will not fail, stumble, fall, become unfruitful, you have to make every effort to add to your faith. If we are going to remain standing, we must keep developing and adding. Being born again is simply the beginning. There are things we ought to outgrow and things we ought to grow in, praying, reading and studying the Bible etc.

Don’t live life unconsciously, to chance or on sentimental grounds.

The only way to secure your calling and make your election sure is to keep adding to your faith.

The word ‘Add’ means to improve, minister, nourish, build-up, develop, supply.

The word of God that comes to you is a pointer to what God is saying and what He is showing to you.

Do not wait until God’s word makes sense to you before you respond, just take Him at His word.

Your life cannot attract more than the level of development you’ve given yourself.

If you ignore your spiritual state, you are ignoring your life.

If you want to go higher, you have to make higher sacrifices. The sacrifices are the things we have to keep making every day in order to follow Him-it is the sacrifice of our obedience to God’s word. When we are not passionate to keep adding to our lives deliberately, we are being deceived. When we can make a genuine physical assessment but cannot make a genuine spiritual assessment we are being deceived. If you become desperate for God, the things you are desperate for will be given to you by God.

Anybody who is casual in the things of God is already deceived. Jesus said there will be high-level deception in these times and He admonished us to take heed that we are not deceived. (Matt.24:4)

In other words, we ought to be more deliberate about the amount of food (spiritual) we are eating. Job declared that he has esteemed God’s word more than his necessary meal, Jesus also said, man, cannot live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

“…Add to your faith virtue” (moral excellence, modesty, purity, goodness, good character).

Virtue means the inherent power of a good or other supernatural being.

Now that you’ve proclaimed Jesus, let your life reflect Him. You cannot claim to owe allegiance to Him and be doing something else or become something else other than Him.

The first thing we are to address in our lives is our character. Our lives should show men what it means to be a Christian, a husband, wife, Christian worker. Your title shouldn’t introduce you but your life. We are to ‘add’ the character of the person (Jesus) we pledge allegiance to.

If we will not fail, the first thing we have to do is ‘add’ to our faith character. You cannot be living contrary to the lifestyle of Jesus and expect to bear the fruits of Jesus/Spirit.

This call is to glory and virtue, it is not a call to shame and mediocrity.  What Jesus is demanding of us is so that we can be more like Him.

“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby… But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light”. 1 Peter 2:1-9

 The word ‘praise’ in verse 9 also means virtue, letting us know that our lives should bring praises to God. Your good works are only relevant because it brings glory to God. His calling of us is so that through us praise can come to God. We are here to show forth the praises of Him and not ours. Instead of labouring to be praised, we should labour that He be praised through us.

The way we become conscious of important dignitaries, we ought to be much more conscious of God in our everyday life.

When it comes to your character, even your thought is inclusive. (See Phil. 4:8) You should not just allow anything to take root in your heart and stay. Let’s be very conscious that our lives ought to give God praise in everything we do.

Prayer

I give God my lifetime