How very true! So let’s start each morning with God and have a strong week instead of a weak one.
Joy – A Fellow Sojourner & A Woman After God’s Own Heart!
Month: August 2013
2 Peter 1:5-7 Developing Christian Love
Adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence), and in [exercising} knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety), and in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love.
– 2 Peter 1:5-7 Amplified
If there is one thing that God has demonstrated in His creation is that He is a God of order. The circle of life follows an orderly guideline. You can count on the sun rising every day and setting every night. You can count on the moon and it’s varying shapes throughout the year. If you give your body the right amount and kind of nutrition and exercise for the most part you can count on it’s response, unless you have some disease counter acting your diligence. And it would appear there is an order to the verses above.
Let’s take it step by step and see what the verses are actually saying to us. First we are to be diligent (work hard) at delving into [the divine promises], to me that means digging into God’s Word. Once we are faithful to that what are we to do? Make every effort to take what we’ve learned stretch our faith (work it out – put it to the test, thus exercising it) thus developing virtue (excellence, resolution). Faith that has been stretched and pulled put through the flames and come out the other side has resilience and is stronger than faith that hasn’t been tested. We will never how solid our faith is without it being tested. Testing brings growth.
The next step is as we grow in virtue (excellence, resolution) we gain knowledge. This makes sense as we grow in the Word of God and our faith blossoms we grow in knowledge.
Now we are growing stronger in the Word of God and we have a faith with resolution backing it up and growing in the knowledge of God we have the tools to exercise self-control. It’s through exercising knowledge that we develop self-control. They build on one another.
When we take the time to work on self-control we will see as the fruits of our labor steadfastness. We will be firm, unwavering, patient, and enduring in our affairs.
With that steadfastness being worked out in our lives we will see godliness add to the characteristics that we bare. Which is a necessity to build on the other qualities we who love God want to very much to attain.
Once we have godliness we can exercise that to mature to brotherly affection. This is an important step. We must have affection (fondness, liking, devotion, endearment, caring, attachment, warmth, and friendship). If we can not have these attributes for one another we have no hope of loving one another.
While exercising brotherly affection this is how we develop Christian love. An unconditional love. This is when our characteristics become most like Christ. We love those around us as Christ did. Life is a process and we are not God we are humans so there will be times when we will fail. At that time we repent and move on.
Joy – A Fellow Sojourner & A Woman After God’s Own Heart!
30 Days of Gratitude – Day 28 God’s Unmerited Favor
Today I’m grateful for the unmerited favor the God has shown to me. I’ve been living in a dark whole for many months and though I know that God was with me in that whole, today the light was visible. It was like I was lost in a dark forest, unable to find my way out and today finally the light shown thorough the branches of the trees.
Where there was once despair there is now hope. I’m back in God’s Word, after being away for more than four months, which has filled me with such joy, hope, inspiration, a kick in the butt (greatly needed), grace, and blessings beyond measure. Today’s readings have not only reminded me of God’s grace, and hope but the truth that He is always there and so is His Word and the richness there of.
During my times of depression when it was all I could do to get up watch TV, figure something out to eat and take care of my dog, there were times when I knew God was with me. Most of the time I had to take that as a step of faith, that God was still there no matter how alone I felt, occasionally and these where rare but I’m oh so grateful for them, there were times when I could actually feel His embrace. It was in those times that my faith was faltering that God was so kind as to shore up my faith and bless my wounded heart with the warmth of His embrace. It is something I will never forget or take for granted. Maybe it’s a sign of my own weakness that He came to me in such a physical way but weakness or not He knew what I needed at that very moment. I was all alone and desperate and needed to feel loved. I’m not saying that I’m anyone special because of that embrace, honestly more likely I’m someone less special. I would love to say that my faith is so strong that I don’t doubt or cry out to God to show Himself, but sadly that is not the case.
In this area and in many other areas God is molding me and making me into the Christian that He would have me be. Some days I’m a more willing piece of clay than others and because of that I’m so grateful for His grace. I would love to say that I meet my trials with courage, fortitude and a strong faith, but more often than not I fail, fall to the ground, stay there a while and then figure it out to call on God to help me out.
This piece of clay is not only hard, so it needs a lot of water and pressure from the Potter, it also has far too dry parts that need to be removed completely in order to work the clay properly. The more the Potter works with this clay the more evident the hard dried out pieces become and the painful process of removal must take place. Thankfully even with these pieces the Potter has not given up on this piece of clay.
If you’re like me and have your off days as well as your on fire days. Take hope in the fact that God’s grace (unmerited favor) is limitless. His love is unconditional as long as you are His child. So, if you haven’t accepted what Christ did for you on the cross, which was paying the penalty for all our sins and that penalty is death, ask forgiveness of your sins (anything short of perfection), accept what Christ did on the cross for you and ask Him to come into your life and help you life the kind of life He wants you to live. It’s as easy as that to become a child of God.
Joy's Words of Encouragement 