6/9/2025 Daily Devotion: A Pathway To Love

2 Peter 1:5-8 - “5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 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.”

Love God. Love Others. … that SHOULD be the Christian life, right?

• We spend a decent amount of time simply telling ourselves and others to go do that … Love God. Love Others. … do that … go … do it …

• But HOW?!?!?! do we do it? … can we just go Love?

Peter gives us a wonderfully insightful & helpful PATHWAY TO LOVE here in 2 Peter 1 that will actually help us do the Loving of God & Loving of Others!

The Source: GOD IN US

• God’s Divine Power grants us the ability to Love (and all other things pertaining to life!) by KNOWING HIM.

• Paul tells us in Galatians that Love is a fruit of the Spirit of God working in us … He is the source!

• We replace our sinful nature with His Divine Nature through FAITH in Him.

GOD IN US -> FAITH

• Faith is the BELIEF that God is real AND the TRUST to follow Him with your life. (Only made possible by Jesus’ Sacrifice on the cross & Victory in Resurrection!)

• God’s Divine Nature IN US will produce a desire & ability to Faithfully Trust & Obey Him.

FAITH -> VIRTUE

• When we start actually OBEYING GOD we start to do more good and less selfish evil.

• Doing good & not doing evil sure does make LOVE a lot more likely!

VIRTUE -> KNOWLEDGE

• When we start living right, we end up in positions to LEARN ABOUT GOD.

• We EXPERIENCE GOD when we Faithfully Trust & Obey Him … those experiences & exposure to God build up a growing & intimate KNOWLEDGE OF HIM … we start to KNOW GOD (and His Ways) personally!

KNOWLEDGE -> SELF-CONTROL

• Any exposure to God’s Truth will lead you to an understanding that your SELF is your biggest problem & most significant threat.

• Jesus tells us to personally take up our own cross, Paul tells us to present our self as a sacrifice to God … Trusting & Obeying God, Knowing Him more & more will lead us further & further away from our self.

SELF-CONTROL -> STEADFASTNESS

• The further we get from our selfish desires the more consistent we become in being Spirit led!

• Consistent sacrifice of self leads to a STEADFAST Spirit led walk of Faith FOLLOWING HIM.

STEADFASTNESS -> GODLINESS

• It is the consistency of living the Christian life that produces the proper RESPECT & REFLECTION of God in our lives.

• We must properly, completely & consistently deal with self in order to fully EXPERIENCE GOD & reflect Him in our lives.

GODLINESS -> BROTHERLY AFFECTION

• Only once we have gotten right with God ourselves are we able to begin properly caring for others around us!

• Before we can Love others we must first care about them!

BROTHERLY AFFECTION Only-> LOVE

• As we start to care about other people … void of our self & as God does! … we will begin to SERVE them.

• We will lay down our desires, our goals, our lives FOR OTHERS … this is LOVE.

So … go Love!

Or more accurately … go TRUST God. OBEY God. SACRIFICE Self. KNOW God. LOVE God. CARE about Others. LOVE Others!