But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.
2 Peter 1:5-7
From the few verses I’m going to run through what these words means for us in this season as David Guzik of Enduring Word said, “These beautiful qualities are not things that the Lord simply pours into us as we passively receive. Instead, we are called to give all diligence to these things, working in partnership with God to add them”.
Diligence: Careful and persistent work or effort.
As believers, it is important that we know and understand that in everything that we do, we work as unto the Lord as it says in scripture. I think sometimes we think it’s a beautiful thing to only have the gifts of the spirit and not the Fruit of the Spirit, or godly traits that would make us good citizens, coworkers or classmates. Although God has us here on Earth only for a time, it is important that we are representing Him well because we don’t have the chance of removing our name tags as Christians.
Faith: Complete trust or confidence in God.
A lot of us proclaim Christianity and are not trusting completely in God. We trust God with our little things, but the things like changing our hearts, the minds of our loved ones, or even for us to go on the road without cash believing that God will provide. Now I’m not saying that we should be lacking wisdom, but we cannot have faith like Abraham and not work on it like the muscles in our physical body. Some of us also use the trust issues that we have with people to dictate our relationship with God. So we trust God with only parts of us. Some of us even spend time living in houses like the saying goes and expect God to play rent. You cannot be saved and not trust God completely. Trust that He has your best interest, in all aspects of your life.
Virtue: Behaviour showing high moral standards.
When I saw this I was excited because a lot of us even after being saved use one of the oldest excuses in the book to explain why we did something dismissing principle, “but that’s just my personality”. God created every individual with a choice. Your personality trait, or accepted zodiac sign is not your personality, it’s a toxic trait that you decided was best for you. They are qualities that you chose as an individual to form your distinctive character. Yes you’re blunt, but you’re also incapable of keeping in mind someone else’s emotions. Yes you’re honest, but your truth is not required in this moment. So we take this into how we deal with each other and then we misrepresent God. God never made you to offend another of His creation, think about it. We must then be able to display high moral standards that are clearly presented to us through scripture.
Knowledge: A clear and certain perception of that which exists, or of truth and fact; the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of our ideas.
As young people sometimes we forget that we need to be educated. When I say this I don’t even mean, “everybody must have a degree in order to be educated” but we all should have knowledge. God specifically said in Hosea 4:6 with no hint, or hidden codes, that His people are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge. What you do know is never enough. We must have sense. There is no way Christians shouldn’t be able to have “intellectual” conversations to stimulate the minds of others. We cannot defend our morals, principles and beliefs if we don’t even know how Christianity even got to us in the first place. I’m talking outside of what you were taught in school now. You also need to know who this God is that you’re defending. We look like clowns if we think we can go up to a judge as a lawyer and defend God if we don’t even know how He thinks, His past actions etc.
Self-control: The ability to control oneself, in particular one’s emotions and desires, especially in difficult situations.
Something that I am personally learning is to not put my emotions or desires above what God says. A lot of times we respond to situations out of our emotion “at the time” and not how God wants us to so we ‘lose control’ and get ourselves in an even bigger mess. This is a Fruit of the Spirit, so we all know what that means already. Our desires should not be on a higher degree than what God dictates. FYI, it is not soft to be able to keep your cool. It also is not of good virtue to always be quick to anger, and it really and truly does not meet the standards of the Kingdom. How do you really expect to minister to someone after you argued with the taxi driver on your way to church? Really now, think about it. I have had experiences where my self-control was able to minister to others, in more ways than one, and please, it is not a Ruthie thing or a ‘soft-hearted’ person thing as I said earlier.
Perseverance: Persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.
This goes back to faith and knowledge. Even when it gets difficult, we should have trust in God. Side note: Faith without works is dead, so don’t just believe, work after you have prayed believing, amen. With knowledge, even when it is difficult for you to learn or understand something do not give up. If we feel like we are in fire, why should we stop there? Get out of the fire. Amen. If you know the church history, and of course a lot that is still happening today, a lot of Christians have to press through to even be able to meet with one another and give God their all. Just knowing that God is on our side gives us perfect reason for us to keep on going.
Godliness: The quality or practice of conforming to the laws and wishes of God; devoutness and moral uprightness.
Don’t think this needs any more explaining. God’s desires become our desires. God’s love to us, should be our love to others. Amen.
🤝Brotherly kindness: For those of us that are brothers or have brothers, I do not fit in this category at all, but we all have witnessed the kindness of a brother. As a people, we must be kind to one another.
A mindset that I love with (because I live in love) everyday is treat everyone how I want to be treated on a bad day, or someone may be going through a bad day and they don’t need me to add to it. There are some things happening around us that shouldn’t because we shouldn’t be self centered and all about ourselves. We should extend grace to each other and ourselves. We should think about giving without expecting in return. We should have the kind of Christ by going out of our way for others.
Love: It’s amazing how everything starts and ends with love. In Romans 5:8 we see God make the ultimate act of love as it reads, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us“.
It is very difficult for many believers to act in love. Everything that God does and did was and is because of love. He loves us and He wants us to love each other. Sometimes we forget that our own salvation is based on forgiveness and love; if only we used that in how we deal with each other. It is important that we know and understand agape love. We can go to all the seminars and all the Bible study sessions on love, but we can never understand and activate outer actions in real love unless we know who is love, and that is Jesus Christ. There is no better explainer, teacher, or instructor on the instruction “love” than Jesus. He lived love, God is love.
~ 🇯🇲The creatOR creatED me a creatIVE – Queen Ruthie 🇯🇲 ~
@ruthwritesposts
Ruth Writes Co Blog 
Such a good post! I love the way you break down each one. I could really relate.
Especially to this: “Something that I am personally learning is to not put my emotions or desires above what God says.”
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Yes. I really appreciate it. It is a very important season for me to get over because I know the moment that I do, my faith grows.
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While are your posts are noteworthy, each successive blog appears more insightful and mature than the previous. Keep it up Ruthie! You are doing very, very well!
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Really appreciate your comments. Thank you very much. I try my best. 💙
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