How Do You Keep From Being Ineffective & Unproductive - Daily Devotional May 19th, 2010

Daily Bible Reading: Numbers 28, Psalm 72, Isaiah 19, 20, 2 Peter 1

How Do you Keep from Being Ineffective and Unproductive?

2 Peter 1:3 tell us that God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness. Wow!! That is a tremendous gift. You can’t get much better than “everything.” It also says we have been given this through our knowledge of him. So the secret is getting knowledge of God. We get that knowledge by spending time in his Word, by prayer and communication with him, and experiencing him in our lives as we live a life pleasing to him. We come to difficult spots and circumstances and we experience God walking through those with us. That increases our knowledge of him.

2 Peter 1 goes on to tell us to make every effort to add to our faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. Kind of like stair steps; one thing on top of the other. This too is our part to do. Make every effort. The Amplified Version says “employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop these qualities.” The words “employ, effort and exercising” all are words of action. These are things that require thoughtful action on our part. To not just float along in the stream of life, but have deliberate purpose in the way we live.

The result? Verse 6. “If you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The result of not acquiring these attributes? You are nearsighted and blind and have forgotten that you have been cleansed from your past sins. Ouch!!!

These verses in 2 Peter remind me of Gal. 5:22: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fruitfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Very similar qualities; seven in 2 Peter, nine in Galatians.

To keep from being ineffective and unproductive we need to do what the Scripture says. Make every effort to achieve and practice these virtues in our lives in every increasing measure. No one is going to pass a law against having these qualities; in fact you will be a blessing to your family, your friends, your job, your church and society.

The Scripture has told us these things. Now we just need to do them. The great thing is that we have the help of the Holy Spirit, because we can’t do this in our own strength. Phil. 4:13: “I can do everything through him who give me strength.”

Tomorrows Bible Reading - Numbers 29, Psalm 73, Isaiah 21, 2 Peter 2

God is good all the time,

Naomi Brinkman