Friday January 24, 2020

BlockHeadLewie

Moderator
Greetings! As this walk through what Peter would call "exhorting his readers to make their calling certain, by faith and other virtues", reality bears it's teeth against me to slow it down! Never stop God's Work or His Will though!

So now that we've added knowledge to our virtue, what's next? Temperance! As some versions translate, this is also known as self control. Once we've fully controlled our own understanding and begin to use knowledge of God's Kingdom, we need to prepare ourselves for change.
2 Peter 1:6 (KJV) " 6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;"
Let's set this up proper: Paul began our list with something we should already have, faith. Since this is the substance of all things hoped for, it may be easy for some to let their virtue go unchecked. If following the line of growth properly then the knowledge we obtain shall aid our virtue as it should be. Temperance, or self control is the label (or title) for the process of keeping our virtue in check, as well as other parts of our lives!
So how does one put this "self control" into actual, practical and apparent practice? A candle wick left untrimmed will soon have a blaze of a flame causing some smoke and greater heat, thereby melting wax faster. One can 'temper' the flame by trimming the wick down to about 1/8 inch or so which in turn draws less wax into the flame and the flame gets smaller.
So how does this apply to us? This change I mentioned is evident in the additions Paul mentions. We will be changing our thoughts about ideas or topics, our views will change, our priorities, our friendships, our hobbies and habits. Everything will change as we grow, we just need to trim ourselves accordingly to reduce excess flame!
 
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