A Life of Making Disciples

If you are a Christian then the Lord has called you and given you a commandment to make disciples. This is an incredible privilege and joy. Jesus Christ went before us and showed us how.

Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Jesus Christ has all authority in heaven and earth. He will be exalted whether you or I exalt Him or not because He is God. The amazing thing is that He has called us to be a part of what He is doing in history. Since history is really “His story” it makes since that it is all about Him. He alone is worthy of all honor and glory and power. He promises to be with us even to the end of the age. His kingdom came down to earth when He came the first time.

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

His kingdom is coming again when He comes to rule. He is our King and we are His people. He wants us to pray that His kingdom will come and to look for the coming of His kingdom.

Matthew 6:9,10 “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.

He wants us to seek first His kingdom.

Matthew 6:33a But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness,

The way we learn to be obedient to Him and build His kingdom is first learning to walk with Him and follow Him. We can not lead others if we are not being led. Jesus Christ chose His disciples first to be with Him and then to do ministry.

Mark 3:14 And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach,

The way we make disciples is first by learning what it means to be a disciple.

John 8:31,32 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

You must first believe in Jesus to be His disciple and then if you continue in believing in His Word then you are truly His disciples. As you continue in His Word then you will experience true freedom that begins on the inside. He came to set us free. Once free then you can share with others how they too, can be free. A disciple of Jesus Christ leads others to Jesus Christ.

John 13:35 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Others will know that you are His disciple if you have love for others.

John 15:8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

When you bear much fruit then that is the proof that you are His disciple.

Acts 6:7 The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.

As the Word of God spreads then so will the number of His disciples. The Lord has called us to make disciples by sowing the seed of the Word of God, loving others and teaching them to obey our Lord Jesus Christ in all that He has taught us to do. Those who are found faithful will have no regrets when they see the Lord.

Matthew 25:21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

Do you ever hear the voice of the Lord? He says that those who belong to Him will hear Him talking to them. He has something for all of us to do. When we are all faithful in whatever it is that He has called each one of us to do then His kingdom will be built. May we all be found faithful.

Revelation 3:20,21 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

A Life with Love Lives By Faith

Enoch walked with God. He did not just walk before God but he walked with God. Enoch loved God and God loved Enoch.

Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. Genesis 5:21-24

The Bible says that after Enoch had his first child then Enoch walked with God. There is something very humbling about having a child. We realize our desperate need for God. When a baby is born we see the marvelous and magnificent hand of God and we want to worship and praise Him. Our heart is filled with much gratitude. We don’t know much about Enoch before his first child was born but we do know that he had a uniquely close walk with God after his first child.

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. Hebrews 11:5

Enoch was a man of faith and he was pleasing to God. He was so pleasing to God that the Lord did not allow Enoch to see death. Enoch walked with God by faith. Faith is what pleases the Lord. Faith is believing and trusting in what God has said and acting on it. Faith is not one of many options but it is the only option for the one who wants to please God and walk with Him.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

Faith comes from hearing the word of God.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. Mark 13:30

Faith is not what saves a person. Jesus Christ is who saves a person and faith is believing in His Word and coming to Jesus Christ for salvation. You can have faith in other religions but they can not forgive you and save you. Saving faith is putting your hope and trust in Him and what He did for all of us on the cross and coming to Him through His promises. Faith is acknowledging that there is not anything that you can do to deserve or work for salvation. It is God’s grace that invites us and allows us to come to Jesus Christ by faith.

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8,9

Faith is believing what we can not see. By faith Enoch saw the Lord.

It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” Jude 14,15

Enoch did not have any Scripture nor did he have the Law. However, Enoch had the knowledge of good and evil within him and Enoch chose to do good. All of us have the knowledge of good and evil. We do not need someone to tell us what is good and what is evil. Our conscience tells us what is right and wrong. When we listen to our conscience and do what is right then we become more sensitive to right and wrong. When we ignore our conscience and do what we know is wrong then our conscience becomes hardened and we no longer recognize good and evil. Good brings us happiness and evil brings us pain. We have to at first consciously block God out to do wrong but then the wrong starts to seem okay and then the wrong seems to be right. After awhile God does not even seem to exist or He may seem cruel and twisted. When we start to see wrong as right and right as wrong then we no longer can see God for who He really is, a loving and good God.

With the kind You show Yourself kind;
With the blameless You show Yourself blameless;
With the pure You show Yourself pure,
And with the crooked You show Yourself twisted. Psalm 18:25.26

Your view of God is not an indication of who God is but is more of an indication of the perversion of your heart.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8

Enoch had a pure heart and he saw the Lord by faith. Enoch saw the kindness and love of God and so Enoch experienced God’s love.

The foolishness of man ruins his way, And his heart rages against the Lord. Proverbs 19:3

It is man who ruins his own life and his own marriage. Man chooses to go his own way and then in the wickedness of his own heart, man blames God. First, he ignored his conscience and then his heart became hardened and he could no longer see God. Then, to man, God becomes twisted in his mind and he does not want to believe that there is a God. However, God has made man to know in his heart that there is a God but man in his foolishness chooses to live as if there is no God and then he becomes even more foolish and blames God in his heart. He cries out, “why would you do this to me, God?”.

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; Psalm 14:1a

But God, reached down to man in His great love and loved man when man had turned his back on God. Two of the most powerful words in the Bible are the words “but God”. All of us have foolish hearts. Each of us has gone our own way. But God, did not leave us in our desperate need for Him. He came to us.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

If you have gone your own way and turned your back on God and His great love. It is not too late to come back to Him. He came for you and me. He has demonstrated His love for us when we did not love Him. Jesus Christ came and died and rose again in order that we might be reconciled to God and see Him and His great love for us.

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, I Peter 3:18a

Just as the Lord took Enoch so that He might not see death so the Lord took the death that we deserved so that we might have life. Enoch lived by faith and trusted in a loving God and he experienced God’s love. We too, when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, will see God in His great love and come to know Him. Then, one day, He will also take us home to live with Him for all eternity.

A Life with Friendships

A true friend is rare and is like “icing on the cake” in life. A friend is one of the sweetest gifts that the Lord gives here on earth. If you have one true friend then you are blessed and if you are a true friend to someone else then you are a blessing.

Proverbs 17:17a A friend loves at all times,

A friend is a gift and a trust that the Lord gives to people. Friends are not to be used and expectations will destroy friendships. The trust that someone else gives to you is to be guarded. They are entrusting to you their heart and soul. Prize it and you will keep it. Take it for granted and you will lose it.

Proverbs 17:9 He who conceals a transgression seeks love,
But he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends.

Be careful who your friends are because they need to be trustworthy. Just as you need to learn to love them and overlook their sins so they need to overlook your transgressions. Both need to seek God’s love which is pure.

Proverbs 11:13 He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets, But he who is trustworthy conceals a matter.

Be the friend that you want others to be to you. A true friend loves at all times and is trustworthy. A true friend will tell you the truth. A true friend will be more concerned about your relationship with the Lord than your relationship with them.

Proverbs 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.

A true friend will love with a sacrificial love and you will learn as much from them as they will from you. The greatest way to have a true friend is to be a true friend. True friendship is a oneness of the soul and spirit. For this reason, a Christian can only have a true friendship with another Christian. Their friendship must be built upon the Lord Jesus Christ as He showed us what a true friend is by calling us His friend.

John 15:13-15 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. He has called us to lay down our lives for others and this is His command. As we grow in our relationship with the Lord and keep His new command that He gave to us then He will make known to us His will and His ways. If you really want to be happy then be a friend of God. He calls you to be His friend.

John 15:12 This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

 

A Life with Love is Life

As long as Adam kept the commandment of God then he would live and he would be able to experience love and give love. The moment that he would disobey God then he would die.

The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:16,17

When Adam disobeyed God and experienced death then he began to abide in death rather than to abide in life. When death abides then love also dies.

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. I John 3:14

God is life and in Him is no death. He who has God has life and he who does not have God abides in death.

And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. I John 5:11,12

Apart from God we only exist and abide in death. God made us to be in a love relationship with Himself but He gave us the freedom to choose. We could choose to be in that relationship with Him and abide in life and His love or we could go our own way and abide in death. Love is a choice, a commitment, a gift and is life. When we choose God and commit our lives to Him then we receive the gift of love and life and we are able to give love and share life with someone else. When we choose to disobey God and go our own way then we abide in death and we are not able to experience life or God’s love. We exist in a lonely world with little meaning other than getting through to the next day. We may think we love but it is only a shadow of the real thing. Often it is a “I love you because…”. It may be duty or survival or even a mutual friendship love with someone else but once the duty or benefit to self is over then the love fades.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. I John 4:7

The conditional love that is in the world can not compare to the unconditional love that the Lord shows and gives to those who know Him. The source of God’s love is God Himself and when He comes to live within someone then He fills them with His love and it is His love that He gives to them to give to others. This is the kind of love that makes a marriage sweet and strong. Not only does this kind of love make a marriage strong but it is the only kind of love that can make a friendship or familial relationship sweet and strong. He who has this kind of love truly lives and is able to give love to others.

A Life with A Home

The Lord makes a home for the lonely. Loneliness is devastating and can bring us low with no one to life us up. The Lord wants all of us to have a home where we are loved and where we can love. Even if we live alone we do not have to be lonely.

Psalm 68:6 God makes a home for the lonely;
He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,
Only the rebellious dwell in a parched land.

The Lord will fill your home with love and joy if you allow Him to be magnified and exalted in your home. He will come to you and show you how He can use you so that He can come to others through your home. People love to come to other people’s homes. Hospitality is a ministry that is given to those who give themselves to the Lord.

Romans 12:10-13 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.

You will find that as you open your home to others then the Lord will bless you and fill your home with great joy and His presence. Not only that, but you may even entertain angels without knowing it.

Hebrews 13:2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

As you water the lives of others then the Lord will water your life. Be generous with what the Lord has given to you. Your abundance is someone else’s need.

Proverbs 11:25 The generous man will be prosperous, And he who waters will himself be watered.

Your home may even be one of the hundred homes that the Lord has promised those who would leave everything to follow Him.

Mark 10:29,30 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.

Wherever you are in life the Lord will meet you. He is a restorer of the paths that lead home. Often when Jesus walked on earth He sent people home once they were forgiven, healed or cleansed. You may need to go home and tell those who know you best what great things the Lord has done for you.

Mark 5:19 …but He said to him, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.”

As much as possible you need to be reconciled to your family. If you have been the prodigal child then go home and be restored to your parents or if a family member has something against you then go to them and be reconciled.

Matthew 5:23,24 Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.

Be at peace with all men as much as it is in your ability to do so. This includes your family. You will find that broken relationships will bring emotional baggage into any future relationships and will make it more difficult to have the home that you long for.

Romans 12:18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

If your life has been restored to the Lord and as much as possible with others then give your home to the Lord and ask Him to use it for His glory and His purposes. Ask Him to make Himself known to others through your home and life. Ask Him to cause His name to be remembered in you and your home.

Exodus 20:24b in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Life with Love as A Gift

Love is not a right but it is a gift that God gives. God is love and when we experience His love then we want to love others. We love because He first loved us.

We love, because He first loved us. I John 4:19

Adam and Eve could love each other because God loved them first. The Lord gave Eve to Adam to love her and cherish her and for her to respond to his love.

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.

I Corinthians 11:8,9

The Lord God made man from the dust of the earth and man relates to the earth. He understands the world in a way that is unique to a man. He feels at home in the world. The Lord made man to work in the world.

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7

The Lord made woman from man and so she relates to people since she was not made from the dust but from Adam. She feels more at home with people than in the world. She needs people in her life. The Lord never tells a female to leave a relationship as He tells the man. The mother is not told to leave her son when he gets married but the son is to leave his mother and father. A daughter is not told to leave her parents when she gets married because she still needs her mother and especially when she and her husband start a family and have children.

The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:22-24

The wife is to live for her husband and please him, just as the church is to live to please Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church.

For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. Ephesians 5:23

The husband is to love his wife and give himself up for her even to the point of death, if necessary, as Jesus Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, Ephesians 5:25

The Lord made the woman for the man and she will find her joy and fulfillment as she seeks to please him with all of her heart. The husband will discover that the more his wife experiences his love then the more she will respond to him and want to please him. He will also understand that his wife is a gift from the Lord and the Lord wants him to love her and enjoy life with her all the days of his life.

Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9

A Life with Family Relationships

The Lord has called us all to be in family relationships. He has made us all to have a family. A family is where you belong and where you always have a home. Everyone who receives Him as their Lord and Savior comes into the family of God. The Lord gives each of us a family as well. Being in a family is so important to the Lord that He says that if someone is missing a father then He will be a father to the fatherless. The Lord invites everyone to belong to His family. He is a good Father.

Psalm 68:5 A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows, Is God in His holy habitation.

If you do not have an earthly father in your life then cry out to the Lord to be your Father. He has a special provision for the fatherless.

Exodus 22:22,23 You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you afflict him at all, and if he does cry out to Me, I will surely hear his cry;

The Lord supports the fatherless.

Psalm 146:9 The Lord protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow, But He thwarts the way of the wicked.

The Lord protects the fatherless.

Proverbs 23:10 Do not move the ancient boundary Or go into the fields of the fatherless,

The Lord commands His people to care for the fatherless.

James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Is your father absent from your life? Cry out to the Lord. Do you know anyone without a father in their life? The Lord wants you to visit them in their distress.

Matthew 10:8b  Freely you received, freely give.

Give freely to others as the Lord has given freely to you.

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

A Life with Love Makes a Promise

Love makes promises and lives by the promise. It is not loving for a man to live with a woman outside of marriage. A woman needs, desires and longs for security. If a man loves a woman then he will give her that security. He does so through a promise. A marriage proposal is a promise to love her and to provide for her and protect her. When he marries her then he begins to fulfill the promise that he has made to her.

I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.” Genesis 9:11-17

The Lord loved Noah and all of mankind and made a promise to Noah and his descendants that He would never destroy mankind through a flood again. This promise was God’s love to give mankind security so that man would not be fearful when the rain would come again. The rainbow was the sign of God’s promise never to flood the earth again. The wedding ring that a man gives to a woman when he marries her is a sign of his love for her that he will be faithful to her and love her. She need not be fearful when the storms of life come because of her husband’s promise to her to love her for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, and in sickness and in health. He will love her all the days of their lives as long as the two of them shall live.

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Phillipians 4:13

We can only do what God has called us to do and be who God has called us to be by His strength and grace. Marriage humbles the husband and the wife because they both must look to Him and rely on His strength for the marriage to grow strong and loving.

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Marriage is one of God’s provisions for productivity and also from discouragement. Two are better than one and will have a good return for their labor. When one falls the other can lift the other one up. It is a comfort to sleep together with your spouse and especially on cold nights. However, when the Lord is the center of your marriage then your marriage will grow stronger and stronger and even more loving. There is grace that gives forgiveness and there will be reconciliation when one fails and a love that is restored and grows.

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” II Corinthians 12:9a

The Lord will give His grace to the husband and the wife to fulfill the vows they made to God and the promises they made to each other on their wedding day. Marriage takes a lot of humility and grace but it is worth it. It is our pride that destroys our relationships and marriages.

and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. I Peter 5:5b

A Life with a Relationship with God

The Lord first designed us to be in relationship with Himself. All other relationships must flow out of this relationship so that they will flourish as He designed. Sin messed us up and we will have messed up relationships apart from Him. We must be in a loving relationship with God to have loving relationships with others. God is love and the source of all love. The Lord is the One who shows us and teaches us about unconditional love.

I John 4:7-10 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

God is love and love is from God. The Lord made known His love to us by sending His only begotten Son to die for our sins and to take the punishment for what mankind had done in the garden of Eden by going His own way. God sent His Son to be the Savior of all of mankind.

I Timothy 4:10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.

Jesus Christ came to be the Savior of all but only those who believe in Him will receive that salvation.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Jesus Christ was the perfect Lamb of God who came as the sacrifice for our sins which He took upon Himself on the cross.

John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Jesus Christ loved us when we were at enmity with God. He died for us while we were sinners. He loved us just the way we were and accepts us where we are.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

His salvation is available to any who will receive Him. Whoever puts their trust in Jesus Christ will come into a personal relationship with God. They will become His child and will be restored to a relationship with Him and fellowship with Him, they they might walk with God.

John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,

Once restored to a right relationship with God the child of God will experience the incredible and unfathomable riches of the the love of God. Nothing will be able to separate you from His love.

Romans 8:38,39 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You will also know the unsearchable depths of the ways and the knowledge of God.

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

 

 

A Life on How to Love

Love is not random nor are some people just lucky to find love. Love does not just happen with two people. Just as there are principles in finance and laws of nature so there are laws and principles on love. Within a person there must be the root for love and the right nurturing for love to grow and mature. There is a root for love and just as the roots produce the fruit in nature so love is a fruit with a certain root within an individual. We can not produce a true and lasting love on our own. It must be produced within us and love must have the necessary root so that it might bear the fruit of love. Without this root there will be no true and lasting love. When there is a lasting and true love between two people then there will also be the other characteristic of a loving relationship and, that is, there will be trust. Love and trust are in all great marriages.

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. II Peter 1:5-7

Moral excellence is the characteristic of anyone who is worthy of trust. A morally excellent person is one who will not compromise. They don’t lie, cheat or steal. They don’t deceive others nor slander others. A morally excellent person keeps their commitments even to their own hurt. Their word is good and can be trusted. These characteristics are what we want in our leaders, neighbors, friends and marriage partners, but more important than desiring them in others, is for us to cultivate them within ourselves. How blessed is the person who has a leader, neighbor, friend or spouse with moral excellence and even more blessed is the person whose own life is characterized by moral excellence. The root of true love is moral excellence.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; II Peter 1:2

The beginning of moral excellence is a knowledge of God. All moral excellence is based in God. Some people want to do good without God, but it is impossible to do good with a pure heart, on our own, for our very own hearts are corrupted. When life is all about self then there will be a conflict of interest. If there is One greater than ourselves that we want to please, then we will be willing to sacrifice what we want, for the knowledge of Him. When we want to please Him then we will know Him and when we know Him then grace and peace will be multiplied to us. Grace and peace are found in Jesus Christ. We can not give to others what we ourselves do not have. When we receive grace and peace then we can give grace and peace to others.

seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. II Peter 1:3

When we know the Lord Jesus Christ and we receive His grace and peace then He also gives us His divine power in everything that pertains to life and living a Christlike life. This divine power comes through the true knowledge of Him. We must know the Lord, not merely know about Him, but we must know Him with our heart, soul and mind. This is how we receive the true knowledge of God that comes through His Word, which is the revelation of who He is. He has called us to know Him and He wants us to share in His glory and excellence. We do this through following Him in obedience to His Word.

For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. II Peter 1:4

The Lord wants us to have a loving marriage and relationships where there is trust. The Lord plans only good for us. He wants us to escape the corruption that is in the world. The corruption in the world comes from the evil desires of others and if we don’t become like Christ, who is good and loving, then we too, will be corrupted by lust. Lust is the same Greek word as desire. A desire becomes a lust when it is desire that is out of the will of God. God’s will is moral excellence. The only way that we can become partakers of the divine nature is through the promises of God. The promises of God are magnificent, glorious and excellent. When we live according to His Words and His promises then we will live a magnificent, glorious and excellent life. In doing so, we will become trustworthy and will be a blessing to many. If we choose to live according to our own ways and desires then much grief will come to us and many broken and damaged relationships. Our lives will become corrupted.

For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. Hebrews 4:2

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the beginning of moral excellence. Not just believing that Jesus Christ lived, but also believing that He is the Son of God, that He lived for you, that He died for you, that He was raised from the dead for you and He lives today for you to know Him. He loves you. This is the good news. However, this good news will only profit those who believe it and unite themselves to Christ in faith. When a person comes to Christ then they receive Jesus Christ into their life and their life starts to become transformed in that excellent and glorious likeness of Christ through His precious and magnificent promises.