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According to Peter, who literally walked beside Jesus, you have been given everything you need for life and godliness.
In a world of pressure and corruption, God has something dramatic to tell His children. His own power has already given us everything we need to live a godly life. God has conveyed this power to us through His exceedingly great and precious promises, which are found throughout the Bible. By tapping into His power through these promises, we can participate in the divine nature, becoming increasingly like Christ, and we can escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. From the series Everything You Need.
Peter opens his second epistle by telling us God has given us everything we need for life and godliness, and He empowers us for that kind of life by His great and precious promises. We’re not a passive part of the process. We must diligently work to build up the traits that will honor Christ and make us more like Him. Peter tells us to diligently add to our faith the qualities of virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. This lesson focuses on the aspect of diligence, growing into the likeness of Christ by working at it with all our heart. Covers Selected Scriptures. From the series Everything You Need.
According to 2 Peter 1:3-8, God has given us everything we need for godliness; He has given us a set of powerful promises. As we put those into operation, we must be diligent to work on certain traits that He desires to see in our life. One of these is virtue--the quality of seeking to please God. Jesus Christ pleased God on every occasion, and we should endeavor to do the same. First Thessalonians 4 tells us how. Covers 2 Peter 1:5 and 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2, 9. From the series Everything You Need.
Peter began his second letter by telling us that God has given us everything we need to a godly life, but we must make an effort to actualize godliness. One of the ways we do this is by adding knowledge to our developing traits. This has nothing to do with our IQ. It means we want to follow Jesus and learn from Him, study His life, and obey His teachings--coming to know about Him, coming to know Him, and coming to know His ways better each day. Covers 2 Peter 1:5. From the series Everything You Need.
In Peter's list of qualities we are to cultivate, he tells us to add self-control into the mixture of our life (2 Peter 1:6). A person without self-control is like a city without walls; the enemy can burst in and plunder at will. But someone who is under the Spirit's control is also learning self-control, for the Holy Spirit wants to impart personal discipline to all our other traits. This deserves priority; it displays maturity; it deepens our disciplines; and it's available to those who develop a meaningful strategy for putting this virtue into place. Covers selected Scriptures. From the series Everything You Need.
Life is full of setbacks, disappointments, and hard work. Many people no longer know how to keep going without faltering, and a lot of folks take the path of least resistance, But when the power of God gives us everything we need for a godly life, we have the capacity to develop perseverance. It's one of Peter's eight core character qualities, listed in 2 Peter 1:3-8. Perseverance requires trusting God, but it yields maturity. There are important steps we can take as we develop perseverance, but the entire process depends on keeping our eyes on Jesus. Covers selected Scriptures. From the series Everything You Need.
We live in a dirty world, which makes it challenging to keep our lives clean. Yet Peter tells us to add godliness to our perseverance and to the other qualities we're developing. Godliness is akin to Christlikeness. Jesus Christ, being God, showed us how to live like God on this planet. The book of First Peter tells us how to walk in His steps, so we can zoom in on 1 Peter 2:9-12 to glean some insights into godly living as we imitate our Lord Jesus Christ. Covers selected Scriptures. From the series Everything You Need.
In 1 Peter 1:3-8, the Lord gives us a series of eight critical character qualities necessary for triumphant living. Brotherly kindness is high on the list; in fact, it's right before agape love itself. The term "brotherly kindness" is from the Greek work, philadelphia, which means "brotherly love." The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was named for this Greek word; for the founder, William Penn, aspired to create a city where people truly loved each other. How do we develop brotherly love? We have it described for us in a parallel passage--Ephesians 4:25-32. Covers selected Scriptures. From the series Everything You Need.
As Peter listed the qualities we must develop as we grow in Christ, he climaxes his list with love, telling us to build love on top of our brotherly kindness. The kind of love Peter had in mind was demonstrated by Jesus in the Upper Room on the final night of His natural life. He met with His disciples, and when no one offered to wash the dust and dirt off their feet, He did it Himself. He even changed clothing to emphasize the servant-nature of the love He wanted to express--and which He wants us to demonstrate to others. Covers selected Scriptures. From the series Everything You Need.
We've been studying an incredible paragraph of Scripture, but the best is just ahead--the seven blessings God gives to those who diligently add to their faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. The Lord lists seven great benefits that come into our lives as we increasingly develop this kind of Christlike and Christ-honoring life. Some of these blessings are available now, in this life; others are in the future, when we receive a rich welcome into God's eternal inheritance for us. Covers selected Scriptures. From the series Everything You Need.
