February 10, 2025

GROWING INTO THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:5-8 NLT

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TODAY’S THOUGHT

Being a follower of Jesus is a lot more than praying a prayer or filling out a card. While these are important steps, they are just the start of the journey. Like a person in a track meet, it’s not the first step that wins the race.

Peter lets us know that following Jesus takes effort. We must “supplement your faith.” This is a great statement that makes me think of the vitamins I take every day as a supplement to my diet. These ensure that I am getting the right ingredients in my body to be healthy.

Peter tells us to start with faith and then we add moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, patient endurance, godliness, and brotherly affections. 

Faith, a trust in God, is the foundation of our journey. We must believe in God and in His Word and plan for our lives. This trust in God means we trust His way is better than our way, so we choose to say no to immoral behavior in its various forms. 

This moves us to want to grow in knowledge which is an intellectual pursuit of God’s will through His Word and the Holy Spirit. Our faith grows as our knowledge of God’s Word grows. As we understand God’s Word, we can become like Christ in our moral character.

This knowledge leads us to self-control. Because we understand God’s Word and plan, we are able to say no to the desires of the flesh in order to say yes to God. 

This self-control grows us to patience. We are not moved to simply live for the moment with no regard for the consequences of our actions. We live for the long game.

This view of living for the long game leads us to godliness. Each previous characteristic grows us to the next level so that we are becoming more like Jesus and less like the world.

The final goal is to be able to demonstrate genuine love to our world. A love that is unselfish and unbiased. It is a love for everyone—even those who are different from us. 

As we work with the Holy Spirit to add these characteristics to our lives, we become more useful to the kingdom of God. God sees us as vessels He can use to accomplish His will on earth. 

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TODAY’S PRAYER

Holy Spirit I need your help to grow into the character of Christ. Please be my Teacher and Guide. Help me to listen to You. 

“Scroll down to share what you feel God is saying based on today’s reading.”