EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/18/2025 6:52 PM
My Worship Time Focus: “Faith Results in Spiritual Growth”
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 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.”
I am going to begin this SD by quoting the last paragraph of the subject “This faith Involves God’s promises,” which comes from the fourth verse from the first chapter of 2 Peter which reads “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.”
Dr. Wiersbe writes this ending comment which ends his commentary on 2 Peter 1:4: “Because we possess this divine nature, we have ‘completely escaped’ the defilement and decay in this present evil world. If we feed the new nature the nourishment of the Word, then we will have little interest in the garbage of the world. But if we ‘make provision for the flesh (Rom. 13:14), our sinful nature will lust after the ‘old sins’ (2 Peter 1:9) and we will disobey God. Godly living is the result of cultivating the new nature within.” I have this entire paragraph highlighted in Warren Wiersbe’s commentary and though that this paragraph is a very important one to help us live the Christian life. Now I will begin to quote from Dr. Wiersbe’s “Faith Results in Spiritual Growth,” (2 Peter 1:5-7).
“Where there is life, there must be growth. The new birth is not the end; it is the beginning. God gives His children all that they need to live godly lives, but His children must apply themselves and be diligent to use the ‘means of grace’ He has provided. Spiritual growth is not automatic. It requires cooperation with God and the application of spiritual diligence and discipline. ‘Work out your own salvation….For it is God which worketh in you’ (Phil. 2:12-13).
“Peter listed seven characteristics of the godly life, but we must not think of them as seven beads on a string or even sever stages of development. The word translated ‘and’ really means ‘to supply generously.’ In other words, we develop one quality as we exercise another quality. These graces relate to each other the way the branch relates to the trunk and the twigs to the branch. Like the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:22-23), these qualities grow out of life and out of a vital relationship with Jesus Christ. It is not enough for the Christian to ‘let go and let God,’ as though spiritual growth were God’s work alone. Literally, Peter wrote, ‘Make every effort to bring alongside.’ The Father and the child must work together.
Ok we will stop here as in the next SD, Lord willing, we will begin the very first virtue in this list from our verses above, which in the NASB it reads “diligence,” but in the KJV, which is what Warren Wiersbe uses the word is “virtue,” and so that will be what I look at while looking at Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary. I will have to do some work in order to see what the Greek word is that is used here.
10/18/2025 7:16 PM
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