PT-3 "Faith Results in Spiritual Growth" (2 Peter 1:5-7)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/9/2017 9:04 PM

My Worship Time                                                  Focus:  PT-3 Faith Results in Spiritual Growth

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  2 Peter 1:5-7

            Message of the verses:  “5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.”

            We are looking at the next quality which is in the KJV “temperance” and in the NASB it is “self control,” which is how that Greek/English dictionary shows as the meaning.  Now Proverbs 16:32 helps us understand this quality “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.”  As I was listening to the radio in my car this afternoon the news came on and it spoke of a man who was stopped for a traffic violation and a woman drove past and must have gave him a dirty look.  The man took off after her and shot her four year old son who was last reported to be in stable condition.  The point is that this man had zero self-control as road rage too over.  Let us look at another proverb “Like a city that is broken into and without walls Is a man who has no control over his spirit (Proverbs 25:28).”  Now on the good side of self-control Paul would write in his letters and compare Christians to athletes who would have enough self-control to train their bodies to run the race in their best shape.

            Next word in the KJV is “patience” and in the NASB it is translated as perseverance.  Patience or perseverance is not something that comes to people naturally, but something that has to be developed.  I heard of a man who prayed for patience and in his prayer he asked God to give him patience, and to give it to him right away.  Troubles are how we learn patience, as we depend on the Lord to see us through our troubles God develops patience in us.  James writes the following in 1:2-8 “2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

We will look at “brotherly kindness” in our next SD.

8/9/2017 9:24 PM