If we have these qualities and they are increasing in our lives....

For this reason,

make every effort to supplement your faith  with goodness, 

goodness with knowledge, 

knowledge with self-control, 

self-control with endurance, 

endurance with godliness, 

godliness with brotherly affection, 

and brotherly affection with love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, 

they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful

in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

II Peter 1:5-8

OK, so yesterday we started with faith, we’ve added goodness, and now we have added knowledge. What is next? Self-control. I don’t know about you but I have a hard time with this. If someone crosses me or gets me riled up (like today on the robo-call), it is all I can do to keep my mouth shut. Now I don’t scream obscenities or profanities or anything like that. But I’m usually good for saying something particularly sarcastic that I end up regretting. I just have a hard time keeping my tongue in check.

I’m equally bad about certain compulsions in my life – like overeating. I know good and well, for instance, that I can’t eat one Lays potato chip (or ONE of ANYTHING) because I then want and will consume the whole bushel basketful. I have said many times that I am so grateful that I never tried cocaine or heroin because I’m positive that I would be instantly addicted and wouldn’t have any idea when to stop.

So where does self-control come from? Where can I get a good healthy dose of it? First of all, it comes from the Lord in the form of Christ-control. I’ve decided that I can’t control me – only the Lord can. So I must not only yield to Him but I must also put His precepts into practice. Remember the “make every effort” part of our scripture passage. I have to work at it through my knowledge of Him.

Have you ever prayed for patience? If so, what has God done for you? Most likely He has put you in a situation which has been very trying so that you will depend on Him for endurance and patience. So don’t pray for this if you don’t want it. God tends to deliver. Look at Bill. He prayed for patience about 35 years ago and God gave him me and my mother (both named, Patience). Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?!

After patience or endurance comes godliness. I guess if you exhibit all these characteristics – faith, goodness, self-control, endurance – it is reasonable to expect to be godly. But, again, these qualities come straight from the Lord, so it stands to reason that we would then become more like Him and therefore be godly.

And the natural result of being godlike in our thoughts and attitudes is to reach out to our fellow man with brotherly affection. It is God’s concern for man coming out through us. Although this might be a natural by-product, it, too, will require active behavior on our parts. It is not natural to have affection for the unlovely in our midst. But by yielding to God’s influence in our lives, we can genuinely express brotherly affection on His behalf.

Brotherly affection naturally yields godly love – sacrificial, unselfish love.

Here is the bottom line of our passage in II Peter which we will look at more closely tomorrow.

If we have all these things and they are increasing in our lives,
then we will be USEFUL and FRUITFUL.