Qualities of a Godly life
// June 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Youth Discussions
2 Peter 1:3-9 (GW) God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and for godliness. This power was given to us through knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and integrity.
Through his glory and integrity he has given us his promises that are of the highest value. Through these promises you will share in the divine nature because you have escaped the corruption that sinful desires cause in the world. Because of this, make every effort to add integrity to your faith; and to integrity add knowledge; to knowledge add self-control; to self-control add endurance; to endurance add godliness; to godliness add Christian affection; and to Christian affection add love.
If you have these qualities and they are increasing, it demonstrates that your knowledge about our Lord Jesus Christ is living and productive. If these qualities aren’t present in your life, you’re shortsighted and have forgotten that you were cleansed from your past sins.
This passage shows us the qualities that should be evident in our lives as Christians, but it also tells us where to find those qualities. They don’t come from our own “doing” but they come through the power of God that lives inside of us. Notice that it says here that this power was given to us through the knowledge of God, to me that means that these things will show up in our lives as we come to know Him better and build relationship with Him. Our “doing” is building relationship with Him and as we do these things will become available to us.
Let’s look at these qualities and also the opposites that show up in the life of the “worldly” person.
The first quality mentioned here is faith, we are told in the word (Romans 12:3) that each person is given a measure of faith. I would liken faith to a muscle, the more you use it and exercise it, the larger it grows. Our job then is to begin to use our faith, believing what God says even when we don’t see it. The opposite of faith, of course, is doubt. How do we get rid of the doubt? Focus on the faith, as our faith builds it will begin to push out the doubt!
The next quality mentioned is integrity, the KJV uses the word virtue. Integrity or virtue are qualities that cause us to live our lives by the moral code that God has set, to me Godly integrity would be living my life, even when no one is watching, by what I know to be God’s values. The opposite of integrity, I believe, would be hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is saying that you believe something but living like you don’t.
Then he says to add knowledge to your integrity, I believe the knowledge he is talking about here is knowledge of God and His ways. As Christians we need to spend time learning about God, this happens through prayer and reading the word. the opposite of knowledge is ignorance, we probably all know the phrase, “ignorance is no excuse.” This means that when we face God at the end of this life, we won’t be able to say, “I didn’t know.” We have no excuse for not having the knowledge, it’s there ready for us to learn.
“To your knowledge add self-control.” All of these are progressive, adding one to the next. I think there’s a reason that self-control is put after knowledge, we have to know what God expects before we can create it in our lives. The opposite is impulsive, doing things out of habit or because it seems right. When we have the knowledge of God and His ways and we add self-control, we are taking what we know and directing our lives to display those virtues, we are learning to stop and consider how God would have us react in any given situation.
“To self-control add endurance.” Of course the opposite of endurance is giving up too easily. When we learn self-control, we learn to endure, to hang in there even when we don’t see an immediate answer. Endurance is about staying with things even when you don’t want to, the flesh wants to give up and go back to reflex but our spirit hangs in there and keeps us focused on the will of God.
“To endurance add Godliness.” Godliness is being “like God.” This means displaying for the world the character of God. The opposite is worldliness, how often do we as Christians act the same as the world around us? Do people really look at us and see someone who acts like God is in control of their lives and future or do they see someone who acts and reacts the same as they do?
“To Godliness add Christian Affection.” If Christian is “Christ-like” then Christian affection should should be a love like Christ has. If we look at His life, we see a man who was moved with compassion, and reached out to meet the needs of others through the power of the Holy Spirit. The opposite is lack of concern or even contempt, looking at people and not caring or even saying, “they deserve what they have.” It really doesn’t matter where someone has been, none of us deserves the love and forgiveness of God but we have it anyway.
Finally, all of this leads us to a life of love, not human love, but Godly love, a love that overflows out of us in a concern and caring for all that we come into contact with. We may not be wealthy, but let me remind you of the words of Peter and John in Acts 3, “We don’t have great wealth, but what we do have we’ll give you, In the name of Jesus Christ be healed.” We do have the wealth of heaven living inside of us, and that wealth of power and love should be touching everyone we meet.
Let me remind you again, all of these things come from God’s Spirit living inside of us, we don’t have to conjure up any of this from ourselves; faith, integrity, knowledge, self-control, endurance, Godliness, Christian affection and love are all attributes of God, they all come to live inside of us when He does, all we have to do is allow them to grow and overflow in our lives as we live in Him!
