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An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Teachings
This sermon was preached on May 11, 2025. It is on 2 Peter, chapter 1, verses 5 through 9.
It's titled "The Way of Becoming," and it's the third sermon in a five-part sermon series
titled "Becoming," which is exploring how to become good and virtuous people.
This sermon was uniquely one of the—actually the only time that I've preached two sermons in a row,
two Sundays in a row. So I got the opportunity to experience what it's like to prepare sermons back
to back for the first time, which was an interesting experience and kind of shaped
the way of how I'm going to prep sermons in the future. So that was a cool experience,
and this was a different type of sermon, too, because it was walking through eight of the
virtues, and I was struggling to find a way to walk through these virtues—that's technically
eight points—without it sounding like a lecture and having it sound more like a sermon. So hope
you enjoy the sermon. Good morning. My name is Jacob, pastor of Students and Families,
and you'll hear this morning from 2 Peter 1, 1 through 11. Hear now from the Word of the Lord.
Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith equal
to ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, may grace and peace
be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power
has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him
who called us by His own glory and goodness. By these He has given us very great and precious
promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption
that is in the world because of evil desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement
your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control
with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection,
and brotherly affection with love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure,
they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The person who lacks these things is blind and short-sighted and has forgotten the cleansing
from his past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling
and election because if you do these things, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into
the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you. This is
the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Thank you, Jacob. Good morning, everyone. Jacob read
the scripture and is preaching the sermon. How many of you have ever received bad advice?
Bad advice, right? Many people have received bad advice. It's unhelpful. It might be obvious or
might be incorrect. I often give this type of advice, this bad advice, to my wife. She's here
today. She can attest to this. Sometimes she might be stressed out about something. It's a normal
thing to feel and so they'll come to a point in a conversation where she might say, "How are you not
stressed about this and how do you stop stressing about this?" And I'll just tell her, "Well, you
just stop. Just stop." That's terrible advice. It doesn't work that way and sometimes maybe it does
for you. Sometimes maybe just stop does work, but we know that it does not apply to everything in
our lives, but yet we know this and still apply it to trying to become good people. How do you
become a good person? "Well, just stop doing bad things," we tell ourselves. But is that really
right? Is it really right to say just stop doing bad things? Is that what it means to become a good
person? Is that what Jesus taught and lived? Is this what the church teaches us today, to just
stop being bad people? Is what you think in your mind this, "Well, if I just stop doing bad things,
then I'll become a good person," only to find yourself unable to stop doing bad things?
Just stop is an inadequate answer and if you feel that way, good, because Peter feels that way as
well. The way to become good is not to just stop doing bad things. The way to become good
is to practice Jesus's virtues, Jesus's way. The way to become good is to practice Jesus's
virtues, Jesus's way. This is what Peter is teaching us in verses five through nine of this
passage. Peter's list of virtues is not an exhaustive list. It's not covering every virtue
that the Bible talks about. It's giving us a framework for how to be good and virtuous people,
how to become good people. That question of how to become a good person is what this whole series is
about. It's what we titled the series Becoming. Five weeks on Christian virtue and how to become
good people. Two weeks ago in week one, we discussed the possibility of becoming a good person.
Can I really become a good person? And the answer is a resounding yes. Last week we talked about the
telos or the purpose of becoming a good person and the purpose of becoming a good person is to become
like Jesus. And this week the Rubber Meets the Road a little bit more and we're exploring the
way of becoming good. How do you actually become a good person? And here again is the way of becoming
practicing Jesus's virtues, Jesus's way, which leads to Jesus's good. We are to be with Jesus,
become like Jesus and do what he did. And that means seeking to practice Jesus's virtues.
Peter details these virtues in verses five through seven. He says, "For this very reason,
make every effort, every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge,
knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness and godliness
with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love." Now remember, these are eight virtues,
right? But they're not the exhaustive list. You can find more elsewhere. Paul talks about
more virtues. James talks about more virtues. This list of virtues is a framework for becoming
good people. And what does Peter say? You should make every effort to practice these eight virtues.
We should apply all of our diligence to practicing these virtues.
I like how the message puts it. The message says don't lose a minute living into these virtues.
Don't waste your time in living in these virtues. We might be eager to practice them,
but we have to have proper definitions of what each of these things mean. We want to be on level
ground here with clear definitions. So we're going to go through eight of these virtues.
Don't worry, you're going to have time to write each one of them down. I actually want you to
write each one of these definitions down. So we begin with faith. What is faith? Faith is trust
in the person of Jesus Christ. What the word does not mean in this passage is belief. Peter's not
calling belief in the person of Jesus a Christian faith or virtue. Why? Is it bad to believe in
Jesus that he lived as a historical being? No, no, that's not bad, but it's too general for
Peter as a virtue. Instead, Peter is calling us to make every effort to trust in and obey
the person of Jesus. It moves beyond facts, beyond belief into relationship.
Peter's not talking about theological positions, but a personal intimate relationship of trust
with Jesus. Scholar Tom Schreiner says that trusting in God is the root from which all other
virtues spring. Trusting in God is the root from which all other virtues spring. The other virtues,
they find their ultimate hope and expectation in the reality of Jesus who has started a good work
in you and is bringing it to completion. And I think a faithful example of the virtue of faith
is Abram. All the way back in Genesis 12, God tells Abram, "Leave your native country,
leave your relatives, leave your father's family, and go."
So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed.
Abram didn't simply believe that God exists and that this God who exists is talking to him.
He believed that, he heard that, he witnessed that, but his faith moved past belief into trusting
that this is a God who knows Abram and is leading Abram. Again, it's not bad to believe things about
God, but remember, James tells us that even the demons believe right things about God.
Believe is not enough. It has to move past that into active faith in a person, in God.
Abram had faith that was active. Abram trusted God. Make every effort to have that kind of faith.
Don't lose a minute in acting on your trust in Jesus, his person, and his work. Maybe
you're here today and you're unsure about the Christian religion. Maybe you're not a Christian.
I encourage you not to lose a minute in actively trusting in Jesus. This is the Jesus who says,
"He's the light of the world, and if you follow him, you will have eternal life and you'll never
walk in darkness." Don't waste your life. Trust in Jesus today. And if you're here today and you've
been saved by Jesus, don't lose a minute in trusting and obeying him. Be like Abram who
made every effort. It's a big effort to leave everything you know to follow the call of God.
Be like Abram. Trust in Jesus to leave all that behind. Make every effort to trust in Jesus,
even right here, even right now. Peter instructs us to supplement that faith, that trust with
goodness. Goodness is virtue or moral excellence. Goodness is what we're studying in this five-week
sermon series. It means to be morally excellent. Scholar Rebecca DeYoung in her book "Glittering
Vices," she starts with virtues, which is good because the vices get kind of depressing as you
read them. So she says, "Virtues, though, are the excellencies of character. Habits are dispositions
of character that help us live well as excellent human being. Virtues are excellencies of character.
But what does it mean to be an excellent human being?
It's easy to define this in other places, like an excellent knife cuts well,
an excellent golf swing will put the ball exactly where you want it,
an excellent racehorse wins the Kentucky Derby. But what does an excellent human do?
An excellent human reflects Jesus's virtues in Jesus's way. It's someone who is with Jesus,
who becomes like him and does what he did. And this goodness, this moral excellence,
is supposed to be supplemented with knowledge. Now, knowledge is factual knowledge that is
rooted in relational knowledge. There's two words for knowledge in the New Testament,
gnosis and epinosis. Gnosis is this factual knowledge, knowledge of facts.
Epinosis is this relational knowledge. And the word that Peter uses here is gnosis,
but it's not just knowing facts. It's knowing facts that are rooted in relationship.
In short, the emphasis for Peter is practical wisdom. Practical wisdom.
And a good example of this, a great example of this, in fact, a perfect example of this,
is Jesus. In Mark chapter 2, there's a paralytic man that's presented before Jesus. He's lowered
down through a roof, and everyone is expecting Jesus to heal this man. But Jesus knows this man.
Jesus knows all things, but he actually knows, like, relationally knows this man.
So what does Jesus say? Well, Mark tells us, seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic,
"Son, your sins are forgiven." The crowds, the friends, the paralytic himself, they're all
expecting Jesus to say, "Be healed. Walk again." But Jesus, having the virtue of knowledge rooted
in relationship, knows what this man really needs is his sin forgiven.
What does this look like for you? What does knowledge rooted in relational knowledge look like?
What does practical wisdom look like in your life?
Maybe a friend or a spouse or a family member comes to you with a downcast face and a downcast
spirit and says, "And I'm tired." The virtue of knowledge is not telling them, "Well, just stop
it." The virtue of knowledge is not saying, "Well, I know what you need is a glass of water and a
good night's sleep." That might be true, but the virtue of knowledge is saying, "I know you,
and I know you're not just tired. What else is going on in your life? How can I pray for you?
How can I be with you?" I think a good example of this is we have medical students here. Two of them
are named Liz and Madeline. Now, because they're medical students, I know that they've seen each
other probably pretty tired from hours of study. And I know they probably know a lot about sleep
habits and all this stuff and how to be a not-tired person physically. That's knowledge. That's gnosis.
That's factual things that are good to know. But this virtue of knowledge that Peter is talking
about is different. It's Liz seeing Madeline tired and knowing the difference between her being tired
from hours of study and her being tired because something's not quite right in her life.
It's having the relational knowledge to say, "Well, I know that you're tired from study,
but something else is happening. How can I be there for you?" It's a giving of self
because you know the person. That's the virtue of knowledge. Are you making every effort to
practice this in your life? Are you making every effort to practice the virtue of knowledge in your
relationships? We should supplement this knowledge with self-control. Self-control is restraint of
impulses and desires. Now pause for a second because self-control is not self-domination.
Self-control is not self-mastery. That theme of domination and mastery of the self is actually
an idea from stoic philosophy where you put in the work to have complete control over yourself
for yourself. The Christian virtue of self-control is different. Self-control is total submission not
just of the body and desires to yourself but of the whole self to Christ. When the Apostle Paul
speaks of this word, he encourages Christians to practice self-control for the sake of others,
not for their own sake, for the sake of others rather than as a means of personal merit. We
live in a culture today that prizes self-control. If you can have self-control then you're a good
person, but that's different than the Christian virtue. One, because the Bible teaches us that
self-control, the source of self-control, is not from us. I can't control myself. I need
the power of the Holy Spirit to work in and through me. And as the Spirit works in and through me,
giving me self-control, that's for my good but it's also for the good of others.
This diminishes the need for self-mastery, for self-domination. You and I don't have to suppress
and forget about all those passions and desires that ail us. Instead we're called to have self-
control by offering up these same passions and desires to God, for them to be transformed and
for us to be transformed as well and for us to live more fully into them. Self-control for the
Christian is a freedom, not chains. Next Peter calls us to supplement self-control with endurance.
And endurance is the ability to keep going in the face of difficulty.
Even when it's hard, keep going. Even when the going gets tough, keep going.
And this is important because practicing the virtues, becoming a good person,
is not easy. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. It's going to get difficult.
And when it gets difficult, we must have the virtue of endurance to help us persist.
We must be like Max Jolliffe, and I promise you I'm saying that last name correctly.
Max Jolliffe is a man known for his performance in the Moab 240,
which is a 240-mile ultra marathon through Moab, Utah. In the last 30 miles of this race,
he overtook the leader to win the race, earning the title King of Moab.
Now as you can imagine, this race, it's 240 miles. It had to have gotten hard at some point. It does
get hard. He talks about it in this documentary by the same title. But he kept going. He had
mental endurance. He had physical endurance. He kept going, even when it was difficult.
But take notice of something. Max's endurance did not mean that he was in the lead for 240 miles.
Instead, it meant he was over 10 miles behind at different portions of the race.
Practicing in virtues is a lot like that. You're going to feel behind 95% of the time.
95% of the time, you're going to be telling yourself, "I'm not doing well.
I'm not doing this well enough. I'm not a virtuous person." And you need that endurance to help you
run well in that last 5% of your life. When the going gets tough, we must have endurance
to keep pushing forward, an endurance that clings on to the hope of the gospel,
an endurance that energizes us to keep becoming good people.
And we must supplement this endurance with godliness. Godliness is living a life that
is pleasing to God, a life of goodness. Now, godliness is not rule-following.
In fact, there's no trace of legalism. There's no trace of rule-following in the New Testament's
use of the word godliness. Instead, godliness is living a life that is like God. There's a holy,
there's a whole, and there's an integrative way to live life. There's also an unholy,
a shallow, and disintegrative way to live life. And godliness is living life holy, whole,
and integrative. Godliness is a way of life, not a set of rules you should follow.
Godliness is asking yourself not what would Jesus do, but what would Jesus do if he were me?
That's a challenging question, right? If Jesus was Jacob who worked in Shawnee, Kansas,
lived in Overland Park, was from California, farmed almonds for eight years, all this context,
what would he do if he was me? If he was raised like me, if he lived like me, if he did the same
work that I do, what would Jesus do if he were me? That's a challenging question, right?
If Jesus were me, would he be on social media right now?
If Jesus were me, would he go watch this movie? If Jesus were me, would he treat my friends this way?
Those are challenging questions. And again, it's not about knowing that and following rules. It's
about becoming the kind of person who, by second nature, does what Jesus does.
Living a life of godliness does not look like, for example, seeing someone in need and saying,
"What does the Bible say again about how to help someone in need? Or what does this theology book
that I just read say about helping someone in need?" Those are good things. Read theology books,
read the Bible. That's great. That's not a life of godliness. That's not a life of goodness. That's
not a life of knowledge. That's not a life of faith. A godly, good, knowledgeable, and faithful
way to live is to see someone in need and do what Jesus did because you become the type of person
who knows what Jesus would do if he were you. Not rules, but a way of life. Do you live this way?
Are you making every effort? Every effort? Are you making every effort to live a life pleasing
to God? Are you making every effort to do what Jesus would do if he were you?
Are you making every effort to be with Jesus and become
like him? Don't lose a minute in pursuing these things. It's a rewarding task.
And we should not embark on this life of godliness alone. Peter knows this,
so he wants us to supplement our godliness with brotherly affection.
Brotherly affection is love of brothers and sisters in the church
as if they were your family. A unifying love. Brotherly affection is bearing with one another's
burdens, like Paul says in Galatians 6-2. Brotherly affection guards against disunity.
Guards against what the Spirit has unified in love. Its virtue is protection from prejudice
and narrow-mindedness. There's no room for those two things in the family of God,
and brotherly affection is watching out for those and loving each other with a unifying love.
Brotherly affection is a posture of welcome that always, always, always accepts someone
for who they are. It's a unifying love. And it's different from the next.
This brotherly affection should be supplemented with love.
Love is a desire for the highest good of the one loved. That's what Peter's talking about here.
Love is the desire for the highest good of the one loved. Love is the greatest of all virtues.
We know this from passages like 1 Corinthians 13-13, where Paul writes, "Now these three
remain, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love." In fact, Paul also tells us
that all the other virtues, all of them, are wrapped up and summed up in love.
So what does love look like? It is sacrificing for another person's good.
It's not inward focus. It's outward focused. And who does this better than the Lord Jesus Christ,
who says, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends."
Jesus is the ultimate example of love, because who else lived and died
for the flourishing of the human race?
Are you living a life of sacrificial love? Are you giving up so that others can flourish?
That is a virtue of love. And all of these virtues are, again, outward focus. It's not so I can be a
great, good, and virtuous person. But by doing these things, I become that for the good of others,
for the good of myself, and for the glory of God. So that's our list of eight virtues.
And the question we have to ask ourselves is, are we making every effort to practice them?
Are you wasting your life not practicing these virtues?
Don't lose a minute living into them. But also take note that practicing these virtues is not
a linear progression. You don't need to master faith before moving on to goodness. You don't
need to master goodness to move on to knowledge. It's not linear. It doesn't work like that.
But it's also not circular, right? So you don't need to go through faith, goodness, and knowledge,
and all the other virtues until you get back to faith on a different level. It's not circular.
It's not linear. It's more like a spiral staircase. Each virtue takes you further up and further into
becoming like Jesus. And you might hit the same virtue at multiple times in your journey. Each
of these virtues, they play off of each other as you journey upward to Christ. The way to become
good is to make every effort to step up that spiral staircase, to make every effort to practice faith,
goodness, knowledge, endurance, self-control, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. The
way to become good is to practice Jesus' virtues, Jesus' way. Read verses eight and nine with me.
"For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure," if you possess these qualities in
increasing measure, "they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The person who lacks these things is blind and short-sighted and has forgotten the
cleansing from his past sins." What is Jesus' way? It's possessing these qualities in increasing
measure. It's going up that staircase one step at a time. It's growing in virtue over time.
Jesus' way looks like making every effort to become good virtuous people. Jesus' way looks like
a long obedience in the same direction. That phrase "a long obedience in the same direction"
is actually the title of a book by Eugene Peterson, who is the author of The Message.
In that book, Peterson says this, "There's a great market for religious experience in our world,
but there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue,
little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of
Christians called holiness." Many of us want a spiritual experience. Many of us want to feel
that spiritual high of being a virtuous person who does what Jesus does. Many of us want to be
good virtuous people and friends. That's a real possibility. You can be a good and virtuous person.
You can actually do the same things that Jesus did. But few of us are excited to practice the
patient acquisition of these things. Jesus' virtues and Jesus' way result in Jesus' goodness,
but these things take time. Becoming good is not a one-time decision. It is not a burst of spiritual
enthusiasm. It's a long obedience in the same direction, a sustained daily walk with God
that's shaped by scripture, worship, and spiritual formation, even when the world prizes instant
results. Do you notice that we live in a world that prizes instant results? We live in a type
of world where we want to know the fastest way to lose weight, the fastest way to gain knowledge,
the fastest way to do anything that we do. In fact, we even scan our faces with our phones to
get into them faster. That's the type of world we live in, a fast-paced world that seeks results,
but this is not the way of Jesus. This is not Jesus' way. Jesus' way is patient and it takes
time. And some of the most beautiful things in the world are made through patience and time.
I mean, think about diamonds, for example. Diamonds don't just simply exist in the world as we see
them today. They're made by pressure. It takes thousands and thousands of years for a natural
diamond to be formed by pressure. Pressure plus time equals diamonds. If there's no pressure,
then there's no diamond at the end of that equation. The formula is the same for virtue
formation. Becoming good requires pressure and time. N.T. Wright says that practicing
these virtues takes time and it looks like getting it right on try number 1001.
You know what that means? It means you're going to struggle with pressure a thousand times before
you really get it good once, before you really become good one time. You're going to feel
pressure to quit. You're going to feel pressure to give into sinful desire. You're going to feel
pressure to be like the world. But that's how virtues are formed within you. Pressure plus time
equals virtue. And even then, diamonds don't exist as just like raw materials. They must be
cut and sanded. I mean, there's a high probability that if I found a raw diamond and handed it to
you, you'd be like, "Cool, what is this?" They don't look very pretty when they're just found
in the wild. They have to be cut and sanded down. They have to be formed before they look
beautiful. And in the same way, virtues don't just happen to us over time. I think a lot of us
are waiting to be virtuous people just by time alone. Maybe when I'm in my 80s, I'll be a good
virtuous person. But doesn't this happen to you that way? You have to be cut and sanded down and
formed. Pressure creates those environments that require virtue, but it's God's craftsmanship
that forms you into beautifully good people. Over time, God gives us new edges,
a new shape. Over time, God smooths out the rough parts as we become beautifully good people.
And finally, the glory of a diamond is not that they exist. It's not that they
look in beautiful shapes. It's that they reflect and refract light that captures people's eyes.
The way they're shaped receives light and shares that light in beautiful ways
that captivates others. You and I are not much different. Our goal in virtue formation is not
to be good people, just to exist in the world as good people. Our role is to reflect the beautiful
light of God's glory in a way that captivates others and draws them into Jesus. Jesus, for
example, was not crucified because he was unattractive and ugly in character.
He wasn't a boring person that just got crucified one day. He was the exact opposite. They crucified
him because he was too attractive in character for his world. We're called to be like Jesus and do
what he did, which means we're called to be beautifully good people, people that reflect
the light of God's glory. And the way to do this is to practice Jesus's virtues in Jesus's ways.
And his way is not legalism. Again, I want us to get out of our minds the idea that virtue
formation is rule following. We're not under pressure over a lifetime to conform to a set
of rules. We're under pressure over a lifetime to become a type of person, a type of person who is
like Jesus, who reflects that light and all that they do. And becoming that type of person is not
legalism. Legalism says, "I need to make myself good so that I can be acceptable. I need to follow
these rules so I can be acceptable." Legalism says, "I need to be good so I can be loved."
But friends, this is not the way of Jesus. In fact, these are attempts to cover our shame
and our guilt and our sin. But we don't need that. We don't need our sin and shame covered.
We need our sin and shame killed. Do you feel like you need to make yourself good and acceptable?
Has that thought ever crossed your mind? Do you feel like you need to be a good person so that
you are loved? Do you feel like God won't really bless you? He's not going to really bless you
unless you stop sinning for this next week. All of those thoughts, all those questions,
that's legalism. And that's the type of thinking that is bondage to the Christian.
But the virtues are not bondage. The virtues don't make us feel captive. The virtues are freedom.
Practicing Jesus's virtues means having a gospel conscience that is free.
A gospel conscience says, "I cannot do it on my own. Jesus, give me your spirit."
A gospel conscience says, "God, I don't want to try it on my own. I want to live
aided by your spirit." A gospel conscience acquires Jesus's virtues over time by the power
of the Holy Spirit. That is the way of Jesus. It's not legalism. It's freedom. It's not rule
following. It's becoming a type of person. Are you making every effort in your power?
Or are you making every effort with the energy and power of God's Spirit?
And ask yourself, what is your motivation in becoming good?
Are you working in a legalistic way, self-condemnation and shame,
working towards acceptability? It's not going to work.
Nor are you working with a gospel conscience, living into the freedom purchased by
Jesus's blood. The way to become good is to practice Jesus's virtues, Jesus's way.
So, where do you start in this journey of becoming? First, you name it.
Name that you and your power are unable to become virtuous. It's simply not possible.
You need God's power. Name those virtues that you lack, that you need God's power to accomplish in
you. And that might be the whole list of virtues. But let me encourage you to just start with one
of them. Ask yourself, what is a virtue that I need in my life today? Not forever, not this year,
not this month, not this week, just today. What virtue do you need to practice today?
Which one of the virtues caught your attention as we walked through those eight?
Which one did you hear and say, "I desperately, desperately, desperately need that virtue in my
life"? Which one do you hear this morning and get excited about and say, "I really want to practice
that virtue today"? Start with those questions and think about just one virtue at a time. And
once you have that virtue, I want you to pray it. Sincerely and earnestly ask God for His help
as you make every effort to pursue it. Ask Jesus, the Jesus who did each of these virtues perfectly,
ask Him to help you as you practice. Understand that you cannot do it with your own willpower.
This requires the Holy Spirit. To think that we can do it by ourselves is actually a Greek
philosophical way of thinking. I can become good through willpower, but Christian virtue
seeks the good of all through supernatural power. Pray that God would give you that supernatural
power to become virtuous people. And third, practice it. Practice one virtue at a time
as you journey upward in your spiral staircase. Now as you practice, ask yourself, "What would
Jesus do if He were me?" That's a good diagnostic question. When I go out today, what would Jesus
do if He was me? If He were me? And remember that this takes time. It takes a lifetime of long
obedience in the same direction. And there might be many of us here today who are weary of trying
to be good, but take heart because we know that this is an ultramarathon, not a sprint.
Know that you may not succeed on the first or the second or the third or even the fourth try.
That's okay. The aim is progress and not perfection.
The goal is a long obedience in the same direction. Have patience.
Saint Augustine said that patience is a companion of wisdom. Have patience as you practice wise
living. Have patience as you practice Jesus' virtues, Jesus' way. Have patience on your
journey to becoming good people. Let's pray. God, I thank You that You give us the power
to become good people. You lived a life that showed us how to be good and virtuous. You showed
us a way of becoming good. And so I pray right now that You would give us the power of Your Spirit.
God, I want us to feel it supernaturally that we can become good people. Energize us to become like
You even right now. In Jesus' name, amen.