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Saturday, June 5,
2010
Make These Qualities Yours
2 Peter 1:3-8 For His divine power has
bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and
godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him who called us by
and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). 4. By means of these He has
bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through
them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and
corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed),
and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature. 5. For this very
reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort
in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution or
determination, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop]
knowledge (intelligence), 6. And in [exercising] knowledge [develop]
self-control (in knowing the truth there is self-control), and in
[exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance),
and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety, commitment
& obedience), 7. And in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly
affection (laying down your life), and in [exercising] brotherly affection
[develop] Christian love (Christ formed in you). 8. For as these
qualities are yours and increasingly abound in you, they will keep
[you] from being idle or unfruitful unto the [full, personal] knowledge of
our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed one). AMP
These are all attributes or characteristics
of the divine nature which was formed, brought to maturity, within Jesus of
Nazareth. He decreased by dying daily to the wants and desires of his
fleshly nature (the nature of man) so that Christ (the attributes or
characteristics of God) would increase and over take the old corrupt fleshly
nature. Jesus Christ left us an example to follow: to put off the old man,
and put on of the new man who is renewed in the knowledge of Him who
created you, and to do this continually.
As you do these things (put off the old,
put on the new) the more you see who God is; you begin to understand His
nature through experience in your own life in Christ; you begin to
understand His love, His grace, and His mercy for us and how lovingly He
provided us the way of fellowship with Him, and escape from this corrupt
and dying world through Jesus Christ.
As you do these things you will not be
blind to the truth, the full personal knowledge of God and Jesus Christ who
He sent, and you have His promise that you shall never fall.
2 Peter 9-12 But he that lacketh these
things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he
was purged from his old sins. (10) Wherefore the rather, brethren, give
diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: (11) For
so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (12) Wherefore I will not be
negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know
them, and be established in the present truth. (KVJ)
My beloved brethren, I pray that you will
continue to make these qualities yours and let them increasingly abound in
you, so that you are not idle or unfruitful in your walk but that you do
come to a full personal knowledge of the truth that is in you.
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