EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/21/2025 8:20 PM
My Worship Time Focus: “Second Quality of Character Temperance”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Peter 1:5-7
Message of the verses: 5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.”
This evening’s SD will be a rather short one as we will begin to look at Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary again, and then Lord willing we will only have one more time to do this which should be tomorrow evening. I begin this evening by talking about God’s goodness.
“Goodness simply means ‘God=likeness.’ In the original Greek, this word meant ‘to worship well.’ It described the man who was right in his relationship with God and with his fellowman. Perhaps the words reverence and piety come closer to defining this term. It is that quality of character that makes a person distinctive. He lives above the petty things of life, the passions and pressures that control the lives of others. He seeks to do the will of God and, as he does, he seeks the welfare of others.
“We must never get the idea that goodness is an impractical thing, because it is intensely practical. The godly person makes the kinds of decisions that are right and noble. He does not take an easy path simply to avoid either pain or trial. He does what is right because it is right and because it is the will of God.
“Brotherly kindness (Philadelphia in the Greek) is a virtue that Peter must have acquired the hard way, for the disciples of our Lord often debated and disagreed with one another. If we love Jesus Christ, we must also love the brethren. We should practice an ‘unfeigned [sincere] love of the brethren’ (1 Peter 1:22) and not just pretend that we love them. ‘Let brotherly love continue’ (Heb. 13:1). ‘Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love’ (Rom. 12:10). The fact that we love our brothers and sisters in Christ is one evidence that we have been born of God (1 John 5:1-2).
“But there is more to Christian growth than brotherly love; we must also have the sacrificial love that our Lord displayed when He went to the cross. The kind of love ’ (charity’) spoken of in 2 Peter 1:7 is agape love, the kind of love that God shows toward lost sinners. This is the love that is described in 1 Corinthians 13, the love that the Holy Spirit produces in our hearts as we walk in the Spirit (Rom. 5:5; Gal. 5:22). When we have brotherly love, we love because of our likenesses to others; but with agape love, we love in spite of the differences we have.
“It is impossible for fallen human nature to manufacture these seven qualities of Christian character. They must be produced by the Spirit of God. To be sure, there are unsaved people who possess amazing self-control and endurance, but these virtues point to them and not to the Lord. They get the glory. When God produces the beautiful nature of His Son in a Christian, it is God who receives the praise and glory.”
There is not much left in order to finish this section but I will wait until tomorrow evening to finish this up and this last part will be the conclusion of what we have been talking about.
10/21/2025 8:45 PM
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