The theme of this article is found in 11Peter 1:3-8. After spending much time and deep thought on these articles as I do. I was reminded that being a Christian is not for the faint hearted or a casual attitude of having a non-committed life style of seeking God. Unless we have a hunger and thirst after God’s best to happen for us, it will be a waste of time for us to ask the Holy Spirit to show us the cost of greatness. It’s as we come to understand the sacrifice that Jesus paid on the cross and the suffering, He endured for us, that our greatness will become real to us.

11 Peter 1: 3-8 states, “God’s divine power has given us a gift that is suited for a life of godliness through the knowledge of coming to know Him. He predicted in advance that, we would be like Him. Because of the gifts that we were given, we are able to escape and be delivered from the world’s moral decay, with its greed and lustful desires, and this allows us to live in His divine characteristics. Because of these things given to us by God, we need to add to our confidence in Him, 1.) Virtue and with this develop 2.) Knowledge now in exercising knowledge develop 3.) Temperance and in exercising temperance develop 4.) Patience and exercising patience’s develop 5.) Godliness now in exercising Godliness develop 6.) Brotherly kindness, and in exercising brotherly affection develop 7.) Christian love These qualities are already in us and as they become more exercised in us, it will keep us from being idle and unproductive in coming to the full knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One.”

All of these characteristics have to be exercised and be fore front in our minds, exercised and become an inbred life style if we have become a born again believer. It’s just like developing muscles in our physical body in training. We must become skilled people in God’s army to do His works on the earth. Let’s define these seven characteristics.

The word for Virtue in the Greek is asbestos: meaning, valor or manliness as being strong. The only way to become like this is to put away all of our doubts as to our total and permanent relationship that we have with the Lord. As we are having our daily conversations with the Holy Spirit and His views and our views are becoming more alike, He lifts up the countenance or God’s approval of us in our own thinking. We are constantly being made aware of God’s approval because of our trust in Him of the finished work that He alone completed at the cross. This makes us feel supported and in harmony with our relationship with the Lord. This manliness and boldness is from a humble confidence in what He did, not in what we have none or can ever do. We must understand if we are ever going to grow up that, He is the one who has and continues to free us from the mentality of being guilty and from focusing on our feelings of a lack of self worth. This foundation of our permanency in Christ must be laid and be our top priority or, we will spend the rest of our lives on this planet as mediocre people and living in a survivor mode mentality.

The word for Knowledge in the Greek is gnosis: meaning, being aware of, sure in our understanding and speaking with words of authority. In 1Cor.2:12-16 Paul the Apostle tells the people what happen to them when they made Jesus their Savior. He says, “We have not received the spirit of the world, but we have received the Holy Spirit from God which, was given to us so that, we might recognize and appreciate the divine favor, freely and lavishly bestowed on us by God. It is the Holy Spirit’s job to combine and interpret spiritual truth with spiritual language to those who possess Him. However, the natural man does not accept or welcome or even formulate into his thinking the gifts and revelations of the Spirit of God, for him they are meaningless and nonsense and he is incapable of being able to continually become more acquainted and to appreciate his relationship with the Holy Spirit. However, the spiritual man tries all things meaning, he examines, investigates, questions and discerns all things, yet he is not to be put on trial and judged by no one. He can read the meaning of everything, but no one can properly discern or appraise and get an insight into him. For who has known or understands the mind (the counsels and purposes of the Lord) to guide and instruct Him and give Him knowledge? However, we have the mind of Christ, the Messiah and do hold the thoughts (feelings and purposes) of His heart.”

We received a supernatural miracle when we made Jesus our Savior and He gave us His mind and the capability to receive His thoughts. God gave us a higher wisdom then our own when we became born again believers. Our spiritual mind given to us by God has to be exercised continually so that we can become comfortable reasoning with it at all times. You cannot receive His knowledge to interpret scripture that you will need for daily decisions by using your own natural mind. We need to understand the battle of our greatness is determined in our minds.

Christianity is not a game of today we seek the Lord and tomorrow we feed our carnal nature and let it all hang out. In my forty years of seeking the Lord I have never seen as I do today, the warfare going on in the spiritual world where the devil is going about in His fury to destroy and stop the move of God in these last days. If you’re alive and reading this today, it’s my whole desire to motivate you to action. What an opportunity we have to interact and walk with this authority in God, to speak a word of wisdom to people every day in the market places of life and save them from an eternity in hell or us being able to help nurture our Christian family.

In Peter 3:18 he also reminds the people that, if they were to grow up in Christ. They had to grow by living in His grace and if they did, they would have spiritual knowledge from above to accomplish God’s purposes. This is why we first have to know that, our security in Christ is permanent. Grace is favor with God that we did not and cannot earn that when we were still sinners; He gave His life for us. He did this because of the pity and desire in Him to restore to us a life of wholeness and save us from an eternal death in hell, separated from His presence.

The word for Temperance in the Greek is egrateia: meaning, keeping our appetites under control, being sound minded, in a state of rest, and staying extremely effective. Appetites are strong desires of fulfillment that God put in us when He made mankind. They are to be controlled by our hungering and thirsting after Him. If this is not our top priority, our soul and fleshly desires will act as a counter balancing force to give us a temporary fulfillment in our bodily appetites of life. These counter balancing forces have no spiritual meaning. This is us functioning in a survival and mediocre mode mentality. You will notice that there is a progression here and when our appetites are controlled by God, this brings us rest. We will then have the sound-minded mentality needed, which in turn will then allow the Holy Spirits leadings, and we will be able to be effective in God’s kingdom.

Our television programming is the perfect example of being drawn into unholy appetites, especially in prime time and the nightly hours between one and six in the morning. I do a lot of my writings and praying time in the early morning hours. I don’t believe that I am the only one who turns on the television at 1am. It’s becoming an irritant and disgrace with the filth and propaganda advertising on so many channels, from nudity, to pills that promote sexual fulfillment and from psychological jargon, and getting rich schemes. It’s becoming a smorgasbord of unholy impregnating ideas from the pit of hell, to lead people away from being God seekers.

We must not allow our spiritual discernment to be Novocained and desensitized to forget what purity in thought and actions really is in the sight of God. Salvation and being delivered from an eternity from hell is only the first deliverance of knowing the Lord. Becoming unmovable in our determination to know Him must now become our top priority if we are ever going to function in God’s perfect will.

In 11Peter 3:14 he states that, “ at Jesus appearing, we as His church should be found free from 1.fear, 2.agitating passions and 3.moral conflicts.” When our appetites or desires are not grounded in God’s leadings, these three traits run ramped and control our lives. When we live like this, we have no assurance within our self of our righteous position in God’s sight. I have talked to many Christians that have lived their whole life in this numb state of living in denial as to their spiritual condition. We who call ourselves born again believers must at all cost guard our minds and hearts from falling into a spiritual mental numbness and becoming victims of the constant bombardment of demonic influences running ramped on the earth. When you have no passion for a personal dialog and intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit then, you become deceived and fall short of your potential in Christ. When we live in this lethargy, our actions and the fruits we bear have no eternal purposes in God.

In Ephesians 5:15-17 Paul the Apostle tells the people “Look carefully how you walk. Live purposefully and accurately, not as unwise and witless, but be wise sensible intelligent people. Make the most of your time because, the days in which we live are deliberately causing great harm. Therefore do not be unclear as far as your direction, thoughtless and not having any Godly substance, but understand and firmly grasp what the will of God is for your life.”

The word for Patience in the Greek is hopone: meaning, bearing up under trial, staying in a state of expectancy, to persevere and endure with cheerfulness. If you look at this definition, it sounds like we’re in a war. There is a saying that I have heard for years that says, “Don’t pray for patience’s because it brings adversity.” This saying has been taken so for granted that, to the point it has become a joke. Let us be reminded that, God is our patience. This is His characteristic because He is the author of all gifts. Life on this planet is an encounter of constant adversity in one form or another. It’s time as God’s children that, we come to grips with life and get serious with our commitment so, we can come to understand what kingdom living is all about. We need to realize that none of us are going to be by passed by as far as dealing with the difficult experiences of life. You can’t hide like an ostrich with your head in the sand. When we live like this, we look for instant gratification and what we do is waste God’s grace and great giftings by staying shallow in character and making decisions on superficial nonsense.

Paul in Galatians 6: 8-9 encourages the people when he says, “If we sow to our flesh meaning, our lower nature or sensuality. We will reap ruin, decay and destruction; but if we sow to the Spirit, we will reap a life of eternal purposes. So don’t lose heart and grow weary and act nobly with God’s high ideals and live in God’s righteous spirit, for in due time and at the appointed season we will reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint.” This word nobly is a characteristic of heredity. Heredity is the transmission of characteristics given to a child from their parents.

When we spend time in our meditating with the Holy Spirit, we allow Him to nourish those God given genes given to us by God our Father when we were born again into His family. Scripture tells us that God rewards those who diligently seek after Him. This does not mean that God doesn’t want to reward us because we don’t seek after Him. We actually stop God from loving and rewarding us when we’re not sure of the fact that God loves us without conditions. When you have no deep-rooted understanding of God’s love, you have no hunger to pursue God with intensity and passion.

Now if we really believe that God is on our side, we will adhere to what Paul told the people in Philippians 4:6-7 when he said, “Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything by prayer and definite requests with thanksgiving continue to make your wants known to God. In turn God’s peace (that tranquil state of your soul), which makes you sure of your eternal salvation in Christ, and learning to have no fear of anything from God, will cause you to be content with your earthly situation no matter what the situation. Being obedient to these instructions will give us God’s peace which goes beyond our own understanding and it will protect and guard over our hearts and minds as we focus on Christ Jesus.”

Too many times, we pray for a specific need that we think is needed at any given time. God always has a desire to meet all of our needs and we need to surely know this within ourselves. The real issue is, God in this scripture promises us peace, not an instant answer to our prayers. It’s living with a quite peace inside that gives us the patience to deal with the cares of life and wait on the Lord for His timetables of our growth. We must learn to rightly classify God’s word through the Holy Spirits interpretations and then our doubts in God will become faint. When our passion for Godly counsel gets side tracked, by the worries and none priorities of life, it’s then that we can become as sheep being led to be slaughtered. There can be no compromise in our determination for total wholeness and greatness.

The word for Godliness in the Greek is eusebia: meaning, piety, and reverence towards God and in a state of worship. This word piety represents a term pertaining to genetics and it represents a son or daughter or a generation of people being obedient to their parents. In the 12^th chapter of Hebrews, it tells us that, Jesus made a new covenant with us and He is the mediator of it between God the Father and ourselves. A covenant is a formal agreement between two parties. The majority of Christians understand that we were saved from an eternity in hell by the finished work at the cross and us accepting that work, when we made Jesus our Savior.

I am also assuming that the majority of us recognize that Jesus saved us and He sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts to live permanently and teach us how to become a mature son and daughter as we begin to interact with God as being our Father.

We must begin to identify with God as a father and child relationship.

The needs that we have for security in body, soul and spirit comes from us growing in God and learning to become obedient to parental instructions meaning, God the Father being our parent. Unless we continue to grow and learn about this new kingdom we entered into, when we became born again believers and come to know the love of God as a Father figure, our security and roots of assurance will keep us unable to function in our total commitment to Him as His children. There is an assurance of knowing a father’s love that stabilizes our convictions when the storms of life come. Now this is what it means to have piety. However, as you will see the word Godliness goes on to explain an even more in depth rooted meaning.

The word reverence is a dedication word or a planned activity of thought, which is motivated in our heart with passion. Reverence means a feeling of profound respect mingled with awe and affection. There is a bowing of our heart and knee to a sovereign King and Lord of Royalty, who is to be the ruler over our lives. It’s absolutely a vital condition of us having a reverential fear of God in our lives which qualifies us for His wisdom and insights to kingdom living. Reverential fear does not mean that we feel that we cannot approach Him because of our feelings of lack of self worth at times or having feelings of not measuring up. This type of fear is learning how to live in awe with great affection for Him.

As we live and bath in His presence, there is created in us the next step in this definition, which is worship. I believe that the majority of Christians believe that this is done on Sunday mornings in church services. We go to church to have the feel goods and have corporate worship and the presence of God shows up sometimes when our worship is Christ centered. We need to understand that if God shows up it’s because, we brought Him with us.

God does not live in a building made with hands. He lives in our hearts. How much freedom do you have in your being to have a spirit of worship too Him on a minute-to-minute bases? I say that because, there are times when worship is more flesh and hype then anointing. Our worship in thought and verbal expression is something we should experience daily like the cloths we wear on our bodies. Have you ever spent the day at home with anointed Christian music playing and spend the day as your going about your daily activities rejoicing and thanking God for His love and rap around care and safety that we have in Him? Do you worship with a cassette on at times as you travel in your car going about your daily choirs? How much of a Christ centered life, controls your daily thought life?

It is absolutely crucial that we allow the Holy Spirit to check us out and see if, we are having a relationship with God because of our feelings of being obligated or because we are just having a ball in enjoying His company and affections.

It’s like being in debt to a kindness performed by someone for us. I am sorry to say that there are too many of God’s people seeking Him because of the fear of the consequences if they don’t.

The word for Brotherly Kindness is philadelphia: meaning, fraternal affection, or fond of the brethren. In Matthew 22: 37-39 Jesus said that, “We are to love the Lord your God with all of our heart, soul and mind and love our neighbor as we love ourselves.” You will notice that, until we came to describing brotherly kindness, all these other traits we have been talking about was us exercising and building spiritual muscles between ourselves and the Lord’s relationship. Now this concept of our seeking of the Lord is the main thing before, we can go on to learn about kindness to others. It must be our first priority with a discipline of our will with intensity to live the Christian life with courage and down right tenacity, which will give us the staying power to show kindness to your Christian brother. Moreover, we‘re not even talking about the unsaved world around us.

I discern in my spirit in my personal encounters with family and other Christians including the unsaved that, there is more of a tolerating for each others behavior then, a genuine kindness coming from a heart of total dedication to the Lord. Without us exercising our spiritual muscles of wrestling in our prayer time and us learning to allow the Holy Spirit to show us how to discipline our wayward flesh and rest in God’s total love and acceptance, we’re kidding ourselves as far as our commitment to others. Can you be honest with yourself and realize that relationships with your mate, family members, friends and the general world is at times a hurting and painful ordeal.

This word kindness represents us having a desire to spread good will to the people we rub elbows with every day. We must have an attitude if the circumstances presents it self, to want to be a comfort and blessing in some manner. This takes place as we are trained by the Lord. We need to get out side of our own comfort zones of only our own needs being met in our bondage to a survival mode mentality because we are addicted to selfish gratification and a give me more mentality.

Paul the Apostle in Colossians 3:12-14 States, “ Cloth yourself, since you are God’s own elect people with deep feelings of mercies and kindness, being gentle, patient, long-suffering with having a good temperament. Be forgiving with each other if you have had an argument, just as the Lord has forgiven you. Above all this (put on love) and enfold yourself with the bond of being perfected, which in turn binds everything together completely bringing harmony.” If you really meditate on this verse, you have to come to the conclusion that a self-centered life in any shape or form doesn’t stand a chance of walking in this kind of attitude. As you can see here, we haven’t even yet started to talk about charity. The word cloth means, to put something on like sinking into a garment or an investment for life. This means that, we have been provided by God, with the same characteristics of Christ to do the same tasks and have the same power to accomplish His purposes on the earth.

The word for Charity is agape: meaning, love, heart change and commitment but not from an emotional intimidation of feeling obligated. Charity is the total character of Jesus. God is love and if we are going to even come close to walking in holiness and hunger after Him, including having the power to help mankind, this has to be our final stature of wholeness. I hope we recognize the progression of exercised committed focus that is needed, to get to this final destination in our maturity. Only our commitment and symbiotic participation by having an intimate and mutual advantages partnership of our nature and God’s nature becoming one through the Holy Spirit who lives in us, will give us the empathy of God’s affection for us to have true fellowship with each other.

Scripture tells us that; “its Christ living in us that gives us the hope of glory.” Glory is our greatness. We were made to be a brilliant, radiant light and to show the character and splendor of the God of the universe to a lost and dying world. God’s greatness is made brilliant because, He uses frail and imperfect vessels to show His glory. People who have allowed God to make them die to self and raise up the Lord to a dying world.

Jesus came into the world for the main purpose of fulfilling His God given task of dying a grotesque death on the cross because of God’s love for mankind. Jesus in John 15:12-14 says this, “This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what ever I command you to do.” Are we being obedient to Him by living in this process that we’re describing in this article? I have learned and am continuing to learn that you can’t lay down your life for anyone unless; you have allowed God’s power in you to lay down your own life and die to self. What is amazing to me over these many years is seeing so many Christians living this pray for me, bless me, and give me attitude relationship in God. What has happened to the terrible need in us for His presence and the prostrating of our being in the reverential fear and coming in our brokenness before Him? I understand that we have the cares of life to deal with. We have to work and take care of our responsibilities in our seasons of life, including recreation time. However, scripture tells us that, “while we are in the way or going about our daily business we need to be talking about the Lord to our family, friends and a lost world.”

There are far to many in the family of God that have no clue about walking in the Spirit and meditating on the higher spiritual thoughts of God.

In Luke chapter 2, it tells the story of Jesus and how “He increased strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him and He continually grew in stature and in favor with God and man.” Jesus has to be the true role model for our life. Talking about God’s love is endless because, it’s a constant relationship with Him daily. I remind you “You will invest you life in something or throw it away on nothing.” I know that you can look at what I am saying here and think, “Maybe you cannot obtain this perfection because, this looks like too much work.” If that is the case, you are not going through the process of being perfected in love yet. If you do not have a deep-seated hunger in you for a higher wisdom and a focus for God’s company and your hope is not built on allowing God to love you by experiencing it daily and if he is not the first love of your life, you are wasting your time on a survivor mode mentality and barely getting by living as a crisis Christian.

In closing and I am having difficult doing this. It’s my heart-felt prayer that, God gives you a deep-seated hunger for Him. Call on Him; He is never far from only a whispered prayer, or a simple cry with in you for help and comfort. Please let me remind you that,

It’s my honest prayer that, God gives you a miracle of a new vision of greatness that He had prepared for you from the beginning of time. You are not an accident waiting to happen. You were called for a purpose in this millennium of time to perform God like deeds with God’s power to a lost world and you do make a difference.