Having an Impact
2 Peter 1:5-8 Because you have these blessings, do all you can to add to your life these things: to your faith add goodness; to your goodness add knowledge; to your knowledge add self-control; to your self-control add patience; to your patience add devotion to God; to your devotion add kindness toward your brothers and sisters in Christ, and to this kindness add love. If all these things are in you and growing, you will never fail to be useful to God. You will produce the kind of fruit that should come from your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
A man or a woman of true character is a man or a woman of real impact. Think about the one or two people of amazing character in your life. They’ve had a real impact on you, haven’t they? Of course they have, and there’s a reason for that.
Okay, so third day in a row, same passage of Scripture. We don’t do that very often … but this is all about the impact that your life will have in this world. So here it is one more time, Peter writing to Christians undergoing fiery trials:
2 Peter 1:5-8 Because you have these blessings, do all you can to add to your life these things: to your faith add goodness; to your goodness add knowledge; to your knowledge add self-control; to your self-control add patience; to your patience add devotion to God; to your devotion add kindness toward your brothers and sisters in Christ, and to this kindness add love. If all these things are in you and growing, you will never fail to be useful to God. You will produce the kind of fruit that should come from your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So yes, God wants to develop our character bit by bit through those tough times. But Peter has another agenda here too. He’s getting old and he wants the impact of the Gospel to ripple on well beyond his lifetime.
So the whole point of trials, and the character that they produce in us, is that we should never fail to be useful to God, producing the kind of fruit that comes from knowing Jesus.
Make no mistake. God wants that Gospel impact to continue to ripple on through the character that He’s building in you. He means for you to be one of those great men or women of character who impacts others with the love of Jesus Christ.
That’s His Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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