Out of control
Part 6 of the series
“Stairway to Heaven”
Previous posts are
published on this blog.
Self-control! Your thoughts may take you back to a time when you
made a fool of yourself. Possibly, you
lost control of your reaction to conflict.
Possibly, your anger blew up to a level of rage. Is it at least possible that those around you
may have felt uneasy and wondered what you might do next? Yet, you may have tried very hard, on your
own, to control your anger, to manage your emotions. How, you may wonder, is God’s fruit
of self-control able to calm the storm brewing within me?
Yet,
isn’t it a wonder that the apostle Peter was called to be the “Rock” to lead
and build Christ’s church,34 when he, the disciple written most
about in the Bible, was a man who was angry, brash, impulsive, stormy,
stubborn, and prideful, all of these, ungodly reactions to the situations he
found himself, and yet, opportunities for character development? The difference between Peter and you may be
that Peter allowed God’s Spirit to transform his character.
Peter,
like you, had to work with God to build steps of character and
experience the fruit of the Spirit. He
had to learn much humility to attain godliness through growth in his faith that
set him apart from his past failures.
Peter instructs,
add to your faith virtue.35
Virtue is moral excellence, a step of character built
on the foundation of faith in Christ.
Plainly said, Peter teaches that the first step on the road to
sanctification is to clean up your life!
a
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 taken 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 - 6
1.
Matthew 16:18
2.
2 Peter 1:5
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