As I coach and mentor men and women around the world, I often deal with someone who I want to shout at “GROW UP!” Do you run into that at work or school or church? People, including you and me, run into all kinds of problems, many of them spiritual in nature, and we do so because we are acting like children. Fortunately for us, the Apostle Peter wrote an excellent guide to growing up.
2 Peter 1:3-9 (NIV)…His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self‑control; and to self‑control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
We have followed the steps to freedom. God entered in, fought the battle and delivered us. We received the victory — freedom. Now we must hold onto our freedom and, of course, God supplies the way. Through an increasing knowledge of Him as revealed in His Word, we receive His Promises and participate in the Divine Nature, thereby escaping the corruption of evil desires that will lead us back into bondage. Within the teaching of Peter we find eight steps that we might follow to reside in freedom and not open ourselves to another trap. The final step is:
LOVE: Caps it all bringing us to excellence; not just the love for our brothers, but a love for all men… Tithing (Finances, Family, Feelings)…
1 John 4:7-21…Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Peter says if we possess these in increasing measure we will not live ineffective, unproductive lives. And in his words, “you will never fail.” I might say, “you will never fall.”
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