Stairway to Heaven - 15

IT ENDS WITH LOVE

Part 15 and the conclusion of the series “Stairway to Heaven”

Previous posts are published on this blog.

How would I ever love my enemies as Jesus commands? How should I love others as I do myself? You may be wondering how you can be kinder, more loving towards others. Brotherly kindness is a consequence of a growing faith in your life joined with Christ, practicing the virtues of which He teaches, embodying knowledge received from the Word of God, instilling the self-control of capturing every thought and bringing them into obedience to Christ, employing perseverance to allow the Holy Spirit to produce fruit—those character traits that are found in the nature of Christ: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—and finally, experiencing the divine nature of His Spirit in yours—godliness. Through brotherly kindness, you will impart to others the goodness and gentleness of Christ, and when you are asked why you seem so radiant, you most certainly can reply, “Because I love you,” and experience that this love, called agapé in the original Greek Scriptures, is the active love of God for His Son and His people, and the active love His people are to have for God, each other, and even enemies.100

Showing, displaying, giving, sharing, and experiencing agapé—love and charity—is the culmination of a fruitful growth in the faith. It is the result of adding...

to brotherly kindness love.101

                                                                                                   to godliness brotherly kindness,
                                                                               to perseverance godliness,
                                                            to self-control perseverance,
                                         to knowledge self-control,
                      to virtue knowledge,
to your faith virtue,

As the apostle, Peter, instructs for building God’s stairway to heaven. God’s Spirit gives you the divine power to form and mold the bricks to build His steps, and it is with His Spirit that you climb closer to Him, as you approach sanctification, toward the dwelling He has prepared for you in heaven. Make your climb a progressive one, and know that when you submit to God and draw near to Him, that He will draw near to you. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.102 Cleanse your hands, purify your heart, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.103 Cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.104

“So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin. “So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away. And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 105

—Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ

Praise to Our Father for the words He has given me. ~Jeff Cambridge

Written June 10, 2004

Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2016 by Jeff Cambridge, Stellar Rhema Ministry

Footnotes
All Scripture quotations unless otherwise noted are from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

Verses marked NLT are Scripture from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Verses marked NIV are Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of International Bible Society. “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark office by International Bible Society.

Stairway to Heaven - 15
100. The Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Greek to English Dictionary, 26 agape, Copyright © 2001 by Zondervan
101. 2 Peter 1:5-7
102. James 4:7
103. James 4:7-10
104. 1 Peter 5:7
105. 2 Peter 1:5-11 NLT