SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
6/8/2012 9:42:11 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Faith Results in Spiritual Growth PT-3
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2Peter
1:5-7
Message
of the verses: We have been looking at 2Peter 1:5-7 in the last few
Spiritual Diaries and in these verses their contains seven characteristics that
are very important in our walk with the Lord, and that are important in our
Spiritual growth. We looked at virtue,
knowledge, temperance, and patience in the last SD. When we look at verse five we see that faith
helps us to develop virtue and then virtue helps us to develop knowledge, and
then knowledge will help us to develop temperance and temperance will help us
to develop patience. Now today we will
look at how patience will help us to develop Godliness which actually means
God-likeness.
“5 ¶
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with
virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and
knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness
with godliness, 7 and godliness with
brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” (ESV)
I have mentioned on several
occasions that in my Spiritual Diaries I generally follow the outline from Dr.
Warren Wiersbe’s “Be” book commentaries which he has written on each and every
book of the Bible. Dr. Wiersbe uses
mostly the KJV or the AV in his commentaries, but on occasions he will use
other versions to help his readers better understand the passage. When you look at the above passage which is
in the ESB you will see different words translated for the characteristics that
I have used, which are from the KJV. I
believe that the ESV and the NASB are two of the very best translations that
can be found for the English language and so that is why I use them in my
Spiritual Diaries.
Godliness is the next characteristic that
we will look at. Dr. Wiersbe points out
that in the original Greek language that the NT was written in the word
godliness means to “worship well.” I
believe that a person who is worshiping the Lord well would surely have to
display patience in his life and so this is probably one of the reasons that
godliness is developed by patience. One
has to have patience in their life to worship well and to also get along with
other people. Dr. Wiersbe writes about
the person who displays godliness: “He
lives above the petty things of life, the passions and pressures that control
the lives of others. He seeks to do the
will of God and, as he does, he seeks the welfare of others.
“The
godly person makes the kinds of decisions that are right and noble. He does not take an easy path simply to avoid
either pain or trial. He does what is
right because it is right and because it is the will of God.”
Brotherly kindness (phiadelphia
in the Greek): We can see from the ESV that the words
brotherly affection in this characteristic.
When we look back at the life of Peter from the NT Gospels we can
probably figure out that he must have learned this characteristic the hard way
for there were arguments that went on between the disciples of Jesus while He
was on the earth and while He was in the process of beginning their training
which was surely picked up by the Holy Spirit after the Day of Pentecost.
The
Lord Jesus Christ gave a commandment to His disciples, which was also given to
His children, and that commandment was “If you love Me you will keep My
commandments.” As believers it is easier
to say that we love the Lord Jesus Christ than to say that we love one of the
brethren, but if we truly do love the Lord we will love His other
children. 1John 5:1-2 reads as
follows: “1 Whoever believes that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born
of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God
and observe His commandments.”
Love:
This is the last characteristic that Peter writes about and the kind of
love or charity that he speaks of is described in John 3:16: “"For God so loved the world, that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but
have eternal life.’” Jesus spoke these
words to Nicodemus when he came to see Jesus one night to find out who Jesus
really was. Nicodemus became a true
follower of Jesus and so he learned what true love was, that is that Jesus came
to earth to offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of those who would accept
His sacrifice as payment for their sins.
This was true love that is Jesus dying for His enemies and giving them
eternal life, which is something no one can earn and no one deserves. This is the kind of love that we as His
children are to display in our lives.
Demonstrating true Christian love is surely a sign of Christian growth
and it all began with faith. Take the
time to read over the 13th chapter of 1Corinthians, which is known
as the “love chapter,” and in that wonderful short chapter is a description of
what agape love is all about.
I
wish to put into the end of this portion of my Spiritual Diary the words that
Dr. Wiersbe wrote at the end of his commentary on this section: “It is impossible for fallen human nature to manufacture these seven
qualities of Christian character.
They must be
produced by the Spirit of God. To
be sure, there are unsaved people who possess amazing self-control and
endurance, but these virtue point to them
and not to the Lord. They get the glory. When God produces the beautiful nature of His Son in a Christian, it is
God who receives the praise and glory.
“Because
we have the divine nature, we can grow spiritually and develop this kind of
Christian character. It is through the
power of God and the precious promises of God that this growth takes place. The divine ‘genetic structure’ is already
there: God wants us to be ‘conformed to
the image of His son’ (Rom. 8:29). The
life within will reproduce that image if we but diligently cooperate with God and use the means
He has lavishly given us.
“And
the amazing thing is this: as the image
does not destroy our own personalities.
We still remain uniquely ourselves!
“One
of the dangers in the church today is imitation. People have a tendency to become like their
pastor, or like a church leader, or perhaps like some ‘famous Christian.’ As they do this, they destroy their own
uniqueness while failing to become like Jesus Christ. They lose both ways! Just as each child in a family resembles his parents and yet is
different, so each child in God’s family comes more and more to resemble Jesus
Christ and yet is different. Parents
don’t duplicate themselves; and wise parents permit their children to be
themselves.”
Spiritual meaning in my life
today: I believe that the Lord has directed me to
the end of 1 Peter and the beginning of 2 Peter to go over some things in my
life that I have learned before, but perhaps was not living like I knew
them. I am thankful for the renewing of
the lessons that I am learning in these chapters.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
I want to remain in the vine so that the Holy Spirit of God will control
my life so that I will be conformed more and more into the image of Jesus
Christ.
6/8/2012
10:52:59 AM
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