A Faith Such as Ours:

     To those who have received faith, precious and to the saving of our souls, what are we to do once we have it?  Peter says we have been given everything we need to live a godly life, whereby we are participants in the divine nature.  Get this, it is important.  The divine nature is no less than what Jesus walked in and expressed to those who would open their eyes and see the opposite of what existed around them daily.  Peter says also to add goodness to your faith,and to goodness, knowledge, and to knowledge, self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance Godliness, and to Godliness mutual affection and then finally love.  If he says, we do this then it would keep us from being ineffective in our knowledge of him.  That is what we should do, however it is practiced in our lives and however we find it in the local Churches around us today.
     Granted, it is much harder than it seems, because there is opposition to it, and it is natural for us to resist our true nature and do the things we always did.  But, there is grace upon grace because of the Holy Spirit given to us to succeed in this.  The Spirit searches all things and knows the mind of Christ and so it imparts to us a power to live different lives from that which we lived before thereby being participants in a nature that is divine like our Lord.  We are like him in that we resist the Devil at all turns and corners of our life and are now knowledgeable to his schemes set against us.  Paul himself, resisted continually until the very end. So we suffer in nature like Christ but, be comforted, because if we suffer for him we suffer on the side of righteousness.  So we carry on and in ourselves a great and precious faith to do the will of him who is eternal and he will reward those with him one day  the promise of eternal life and a kingdom that is greater than this one. What are we to do, Love one another as he loved us..........