Faith With All The Trimmings

Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. _{2 Peter 1:5-7}

God, by the power of the Holy Spirit within us, and the provision of his spiritual gifts, has given us everything we need to live godly lives. We enhance our faith through virtue (goodness), truth, self-control, steadfastness (faithfulness), godliness (gentleness/patience), brotherly affection (kindness) and love.

Our commission from Jesus is to bear fruit for the glory of God and to demonstrate that we are His disciples. Practicing these qualities will ‘keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (v8). As we know, practice makes perfect, and strange as it may seem, the more we practice these wonderful spiritual qualities, the more effective we will be in living them out.

The proof that we are His is evident by how we live.