Are you living the life that God planned for you to live?
We are able to live the life that God intended for us to live. We are offered everything we need to become the person God intended us to be.
This is the seventh of a series of posts discussing qualities we need to develop in our lives that will help us live the life that God intended us to live.
2 Peter 1:5-8 lists seven qualities that will help us become the person God wants us to be.
This post addresses brotherly affection.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, (2 Peter 1:5-7 ESV)
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:8)
If we want to be the person that God wants to be, we need the quality of brotherly affection in our lives. Other versions of scripture call this quality:
brotherly kindness (KJV)
kindness toward your brothers and sisters in Christ (ERV)
mutual affection (NIV)
kindness for one another (NIRV)
Simply put, we need to have an unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4 ESV)
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:9-10 ESV)
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2 ESV)
Without a genuine concern for other Christians we are not the person God wants us to be.
Prayer: Father, help me to develop the quality of brotherly affection.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32 ESV)
(Be sure to read future posts that will discuss more qualities that will help us live our lives as God intended.)
Click here to view previous posts on the Seeking His Kingdom website.
