Skip to main content

Before Love

          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, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, 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. (II Peter 1:5-8)
          It all begins with faith. It always all begins with faith. What we believe, really believe is the ground from which our behaviors grow. That’s why the self-esteem programs of the past couple decades are so dangerous. Their belief of what they’re told, with a childlike absolute faith produces negative actions (or more properly, reactions) when they discover that the rest of the world doesn’t agree.
          Strangely, what follows faith isn’t love. Love is the greatest commandment, but we’re not told to add it to faith. Instead, we’re told to add goodness. Why goodness? I believe it’s because goodness is simple and practical love. It’s doing to others as we would have them do to us.
          Next, Peter adds knowledge. Some people like to say that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care, but the Bible reverses it. Before you show how much you care, you need to know as much as possible that is relevant to the situation. This is where we so often go wrong. Loving, caring people hearing about some how bad things are in East Africa send clothing and destroy the textile industry that was starting up there. Loving, caring people hear about how bad things are in another area, and send a huge shipment of eggs, destroying the livelihood of local farmers. We’re so busy being compassionate that we don’t realize that our compassion is doing more harm than good.
          After knowledge, we have self-control and perseverance. Not only do we have to be good, and to learn how best to help, but we need to not go overboard, and we need to be in it for the long haul. On top of all that, we need to be godly. Godly? How’s that different from being good? If God is love, how’s it different from being loving? Godliness has to do with loving God, and living in a correct relationship with Him.
         It’s only when we are doing all these things that it becomes possible to rightly show mutual affection or love. Without all those other things, mutual affection and love turn into use and abuse.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more