Vital signs- Friday, March 24th,2023

Do you have a vision for your life? Are you purposeful? Are you productively working towards things of eternity?

Once we have trusted Jesus as our Savior, and have asked the Lord into our lives, we are given everything we need for life and godliness, and the Holy Spirit lives inside of us. (Hebrews 10:14) This doesn’t mean that instantaneously we are all perfect in the sense that we never make mistakes. It means that we are saved instantaneously. We are washed clean. We are forgiven. Now it is time to let that grow. To grow in our sanctification, and in our purity.

Peter tells us that in order to grow and build our new lives in Christ we should make every effort to add to our faith six building attributes, which are: goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, brotherly affection, and love. (2 Peter 1:5-8)

Christian character is intentionally pursued, not passively received. We have to intentionally pursue what Christ is wanting our Christian character to be. (Romans 6:19) You don’t just show up at church, sit down, and all of a sudden you become more Christian. The process of growing is participating in worship. It is participating in the message. It is listening. It is trusting. It is knowing. It is letting God do His work in you and through you that makes the difference. You don’t just become a car because you are standing in a garage. You don’t just say, “Well, I am a believer because I went to church.”

When you trust in Christ for salvation, you start a new relationship with Him. Then you begin to grow in this relationship. That is why Peter is saying, “To grow I want you to add to your faith in these other six ways.”

Don’t think about building with these six attributes as a serial effort. You don’t need to wait to achieve one and then, once you get past 101, move to 201, and then to 301, and on and on. This is more like putting them all together in the blender and hitting “blend.” This is a recipe. All of these are happening in our life in different ways and at all different points in time. We are growing in all of these things, sometimes simultaneously. It is a mix. While we grow we put all these things together.

“But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

‭‭II Peter‬ ‭1‬:‭5‬-‭8‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Team Wade loves you and is praying for you 👊❤️