3 God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and for godliness.  This power was given to us through knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and integrity.  4 Through his glory and integrity he has given us his promises that are of the highest value.  Through these promises you will share in the divine nature because you have escaped the corruption that sinful desires cause in the world.  5 Because of this, make every effort to add integrity to your faith; and to integrity add knowledge;  6 to knowledge add self-control; to self-control add endurance; to endurance add godliness;  7 to godliness add Christian affection; and to Christian affection add love.  8 If you have these qualities and they are increasing, it demonstrates that your knowledge about our Lord Jesus Christ is living and productive.  9 If these qualities aren’t present in your life, you’re shortsighted and have forgotten that you were cleansed from your past sins.  10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, use more effort to make God’s calling and choosing of you secure.  If you keep doing this, you will never fall away.

2 Peter 1:3-10 (God’s Word Translation)

These words slapped me in the face this morning as I read them!  I woke up this morning frustrated with myself for once again falling off the wagon and decided to take the advice of a well known TV evangelist that I heard yesterday morning.  She said if you’re having problems with anger, study patience and kindness; if you’re having problems with sadness study joy, etc.  In other words be intentional about your devotional reading, rather than thumbing through mindlessly and dropping your finger.  So, this morning I decided to search for scriptures that spoke to having self control.  2 Peter 1:3-10 is where the Holy Spirit arrested me and gently, yet forcefully spoke to my spirit.

“God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.”  Yet, if you’re anything like me… the excuse is, “I just don’t have enough self-control”.  Now either we’re right or the writer of 2 Peter is… this could get ugly.  If we really believe that God’s word is truth, then what is actually going on is that we are not accepting (faith) the divine blessing of ALL we need for life and godliness.  When I considered the weight of this reality, I was convicted by my lack of faith and my seeming immediate deference to laziness… can you say cop-out?  For me, God’s divine power to live is about way more than our faith journey, it touches every facet of our spirit-man as well as our humanity. God enables us to live wholistically!  We know this in theory, but how many of us walk it out?

The Word, tells us that God not only gives us divine power, but He also gives us knowledge of his Son.  It is through our relationship with Christ Jesus, that we being to grow in our faith.  That last phrase is interesting isn’t it?  “Grow in our faith”… Only living things can grow, and living things only grow when they receive proper nutrition and nurture.  We are encouraged to ADD to our faith, to grow our faith if you will, by continually pursuing godliness.  We’re saved, but that is not the destination… it is the first step in a life-long journey to eternity.

Notice the progression of “add-ons”, I think there is something freeing about this order, if we can embrace it.  Most of us try to add everything in one day.  Take dieting and exercise, two of my least favorite things, my normal approach has always been all or nothing.  That’s the kind of person I am… if I’m in, I’m all in and could sell my brand of ice to a polar bear.  But, if I’m out, it would take an act of Congress to get me in, and we all know how well Congress is working these days.  The point is many of us try to embrace radical change, when baby steps is the better plan.  Let’s walk through the add-ons!

5 “Because of this, make every effort to add integrity to your faith; and to integrity add knowledge; 6 to knowledge add self-control; to self-control add endurance; to endurance add godliness; 7 to godliness add Christian affection; and to Christian affection add love.”

The first four things mentioned are not just spiritual in nature… They are important values for every part of our lives.   Integrity – Being the same when no one is looking, sticking to your word or promises, follow through.   Knowledge – Wisdom or insight gained through research and study, knowing how to apply your wisdom makes you capable of even more integrity.   Self-Control – The ability to set boundaries for ourselves, it’s more than saying NO, it’s saying yes to greater freedom and sweeter rewards.   Endurance – The ability to manage our energies and finish strong. Like mathematical training in grade school, each quality or core-value builds on the previous.

What this order tells us, is that we have to start by being people of integrity.  We don’t have to run a marathon the first day, and in fact shouldn’t even try.  We have to get our mindset right first.  As we renew our minds, we gain knowledge and develop a Christ-centered plan of attack or strategy.  That strategy coupled with our integrity and His divine power help us to exhibit more self-control.  We develop more endurance each time we face crises, situations or temptations that test our integrity, Knowledge (Strategy) and self-control.  These tests grow our faith… “You know that such testing of your faith produces endurance. Endure until your testing is over.  Then you will be mature and complete, and you won’t need anything” (James 1:3-4).

These tests not only grow your faith (ie. spiritual life), they also make us stronger, more mature people. If we would approach every facet of our lives through the scope of this order of add-ons, we will find that other areas of our lives would benefit from this Biblical truth as well.  The last part of the progression includes godliness, Christian affection and Love. As we grow stronger in our faith these qualities are the results.  Here again, if we continue to pursue these qualities and strive to add-on to our faith(salvation), we will approach every part of life differently.  There were will (and should be) tangible differences in the way we present ourselves as Christ’s ambassadors to the world.

It is my prayer that we (especially ME), would all learn to ADD-ON to our faith with a frequency that challenges those around us to rise to a new level.  That we would “keep doing this, so that we will never fall away.”  God help us to be people who love you with more than our mouths.  Help us to be people who are challenged by your Spirit and rise to meet the challenge, rather than shying away from it.  Help us to be humble and not stubborn, so that we can move to the next place you have for us, rather than remaining stuck in our old ways of doing life.  Finally, help us to not make excuses for why we stagnate and rather make decisions to pursue godliness!

I’m writing this to recount, reflect and recondition!  I had a big wake up call two weeks ago for the second time, in my short (relatively) 32 years.  My heart went into Atrial fibrillation and stayed that way for the better part of six hours. A-fib as it is commonly referred to, is not the same as a cardiac arrest, my heart never stopped during this ordeal.  A-fib, is essentially a short-circuiting of the upper two chambers of the heart.  It took doctors in the ER and CCU five tries with different medications to slow my heart back into a normal rhythm.  There was talk of cardioversion, however it proved to be unnecessary.  It was a time filled with anxiety and fear (particularly for my wife).  After my heart rate returned to a normal rhythm, I underwent a battery of tests and procedures to determine what if any damage had been done to my heart.  Jacqueline and I were thrilled to find out that I had suffered no damage to my heart, nor was there any concern regarding the health of my heart.  I had no blockages, blood pressure was normal, cholesterol was good, all in all I was given a challenge to live a healthier life style and thereby reduce the physical stress on my body.  The Cardiologist informed me that he believed my condition was due to stress, both external and internal.  He challenged me with the notion that although most stress is unavoidable and uncontrollable, my unwillingness to this point to control my diet, exercise and lifestyle was most definitely something within my scope to control.  He said that he believed this was the most effective way for me to deal with my body’s propensity to send my heart into Atrial Fibrillation.

I had a couple of big realizations laying in CCU overnight.  First, I really love my wife and family.  Secondly, I want to be around to see my kids get married and have kids of their own.  I prayed and asked God to still my heart, I admitted that I had lived selfishly and irresponsibly.  Shortly after-wards I fell asleep, upon waking up, I could sense that my heart had gotten back into normal rhythm.  I was grateful for another chance to do things right!

I am on a personal journey right now, one that I won’t fully understand until I get to the other-side.   I find myself pulled in every direction imaginable, and if you know me, that’s how I like it best.  I am pursuing my ministerial credentialing, finishing the work for my Master’s, being a father of two amazing kids and expecting a new addition and serving as a student pastor to almost 100 students; I am a Husband, a leader, a counselor and friend.  The challenge for me is to reposition myself to excel at this journey rather than blindly stumble through it.  I have rediscovered a passion for being a dad that I first remember feeling after holding my niece for the first time.  I remember watching her dad as he was sucked into the vortex of a daddy’s girl.  I wanted it then, I have it now!  I am blessed beyond words to describe my wife and children.  Jacqueline is my rock!  She is the quintessential helpmate, she is my champion, my very best friend and for some strange reason my biggest fan.  My children are the delight of my life.  They never fail to change my outlook.  Laughter fills our home, because of the wonderful blessings God has provided us through His gifts, our children.

I am not going to say that this will be easy, I am simply saying, I have never been this motivated.  I want to live a way that honors God, that motivates others and models right living to my children.  I want my choices to enhance, not harm my wife’s spirit.  I desire to be an example not a statistic!  So with that said, now begins the hard stuff… learning to say no, learning to embrace change and finding focus.  Paul put it this way “Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward-to Jesus.  I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.”  Phil. 3:13-14.  Over the next year I believe that change is coming.  I declared it at the start of this year and I intend to see it through.  God is going to use these days, hours and minutes to teach me the truth of James 1:1-4.  “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.  You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.  So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”

I appreciate the love, concern and prayers expressed by so many wonderful friends and sojourners.  My prayer is that my passion might ignite yours!

I was thinking the other day, I was wishing that I could see into the future.  I thought about it a lot actually, and then I realized that I was in the future.  

What I mean is this… I started thinking about some of the trials and circumstances that I was facing, and wishing that I could see the end to know what was coming and as I wasted a half hour worrying about it, God was working.  My time was not spent in a worthwhile endeavor  trying to come to some type of resolution or fix to a problem, it was simply wasted.  While I moped and fretted over something that isn’t in my hands anyway, “God was working everything to my eventual good”(Romans 8:28).  

I wasted thirty minutes, I was 30 minutes further along in my life with nothing to show.  I was in the future.  It came without asking my permission, it came without my realization that it was coming.  I wasted time worrying over what the future might hold and yet it came and nothing happened, except that God was working.  He was in control the whole time.  Not one microsecond of time elapsed that God did not control, plan and allow.  There was not one minute in which God was worried that my future might not turn out exactly the way he had intended.

The problem lies in me, in fact it lies in all of us.  We are not willing to trust in God.  Maybe it is because we are unable to see Him, that makes us second guess His ability to come through.  Or perhaps it is our controlling nature (ME) that prohibits us from allowing God to work in the way that He desperately wants to in our lives.  For most of us however, it is because we have been let down so many times and left rejected, that we are unwillingly to open up our hearts to allow anyone else a place.  

God’s word says “He holds us in the palm of His Hand”(Psalms 95:3-5).  God’s desire for us is that we would simply trust Him, and to believe that He is able 

When I realized that I had accomplished nothing through my worrying, I made the decision to start trusting and stop wishing!