Productive and Useful
“In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
2 Peter 1:5-8 NLT
Love everyone. Obey God’s word. Stay away from sin. Encourage others. Keep each other accountable. Don’t judge. Don’t compromise.
Throughout the years growing as a person and a Christian, my mind has known that God is, well, God. I’ve known that Jesus is God and that the Holy Spirit is intertwined, one of the three, the Holy Trinity. That has never changed.
Being a rule follower, black and white type of person with no grey lines, and a person that hates controversy and confrontation, I struggle with following the truth. I know that sounds like an oxymoron. It’s not that I have trouble with the truth, it’s a struggle of knowing the correct truth to follow. People, religion, history, life, church, friends, etc, all can say contradictory things. Some mean well, and some don’t. But just because one means well, doesn’t mean it’s right. And there’s so much information in our generation mixed with truth and lies, it’s hard to decipher.
When we choose to believe something, we must be sure it’s the right thing to believe and in the right context. I surely don’t have all the answers and neither does the most educated person on earth. The only one that has all the perfect answers is God Himself! And He gave His Son Jesus to die for us and then He left us His Holy Spirit. We must love and pray and listen and obey and pray. (Yes I meant to say pray twice) Gods wisdom is the real, whole, holy truth! And it’s not popular.
Do we love everyone and accept the sin? Do we pray about everything and then do whatever we want or feel like?
Do we read the Bible, love and do good deeds and accept all lifestyle as good?
The answer to all of these questions is a hard and solid no.
We love everyone but we do not accept the sin.
We pray about everything and then we ask for Gods wisdom to do what is good and respectful.
We read the Bible, love and do good deeds and ask God for strength and wisdom to stand strong in the lifestyle He approves of.
As a child it was simple. We are to be like a child. Children don’t judge yet they call it what it is. Children love unconditionally. Children still love us as us, even when we mess up, over and over again.
Are you a child of God? Keep your eyes on Him by keeping in prayer, reading His Word, in attitude. Seek to love others as they are. And let God do the convicting. Seek Gods direction in every step and attitude. Do what we know is right in Gods sight. Let God our Heavenly Father take care of the rest. When He tells us to speak, we speak out of Love as directed. Never out of hate or condemnation.
Faith with moral excellence with knowledge with self-control with patient endurance with godliness with brotherly with love for everyone.
This is knowing our Awesome Holy God of all!
#faith #prayer #love #wisdom