Grace Unleashed

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, and brotherly affection with love. -- 2 Peter 1:5-7 (ESV) How would you describe the gospel? What adjective best displays it’s nature? Some of my favorites are - amazing, scandalous, grand, and gracious. To take sinful, rebellious creatures and redeem them through sacrificial love can only be described as super-natural. But that is exactly what God did through Christ. And that act is applied to us through the Holy Spirit granting us life, relationship, and family. When we understand this movement of God, we are driven to respond. That’s what we find in 2 Peter 1:5-7, our natural response to the gracious movement of God. This week instead of seeing these as a chain of virtues, I want you to understand these as appropriate and empowered responses to the gift of the gospel. And when we do, these become not a task list, to painfully accomplish, but a worshipful, thank you note written across our lives.