Rabbit Trail: 2 Peter 1:3-20
Sometimes during my devotional times, I come across a verse that will trigger a ‘rabbit trail,’ so to speak. I start researching and following various verses on the topic. Most of the time, God will bless with great insight. I thought I would share some of those rabbit trails with my readers.
2 Pet 1:3-10
God has given us all we need through knowledge of Him to become a reflection of His character (glory) & virtue (partaker of Divine Nature).
As I examined the list of traits Peter wrote, I noticed they are progressive. They demonstrate steps in Christian growth. First you begin with faith. Everyone is given a measure of faith. Whether you grow your faith is up to you. Every level of growth requires us to act on what God has shown us.
From faith, God leads us to increased virtue (goodness/uprightness). As we act on that virtue and we grow, we increase in knowledge. God grants us more light as we learn and follow Him in obedience.
As we continue with increased knowledge, we develop temperance (self-control). We learn to start controlling the ‘lusts of the flesh.’
As we continue growing from temperance, we develop patience with others since we remember when we were like-wise affected. We are able to endure hardship better.
As we grow from patience, we develop a deeper level of godliness (devotion to God). We begin to reflect more of His character. From this character development, we develop a life of kindness (brotherly love/gentleness).
From kindness, we grow even more until our lives demonstrate God’s agape love in all parts of our lives, rather than just to those we know and love.
This love will continue to grow until we the demonstrate all of the fruit of the Spirit. This fruit is the reflection of God’s character, demonstrated in the Ten Commandments. When we live this completely, sin will be completely purged from our lives.
Circling back to the first verse. God gives us all we need to reach this state. It’s our choice to be co-laborers with Him in the development of our sanctified character. We have to accept these gifts of character development and put them into practice (obedience).
Quite a deep hole today. I wanted to give you something to think about.