The Character Building Chain

Yesterday in church Bro. Dennis read the first Chapter of 2nd Peter:

"And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue: and to virtue knowledge;
And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
And to Godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

I've heard this scripture a lot; and it's a very good scripture to examine myself with. It's amazing though how you can hear something so much, but every once in awhile you get some insight that you've never had before. As Bro. Dennis was reading this scripture I examined the order more closely. I thought about how it would be hard to be truly virtuous if you didn't have Faith first. He also explained how virtue had the same core word as virgin, meaning pure and undefiled. I thought about how it would be hard to have the true knowledge of God without first having virtue; because if you didn't have virtue it would be easy to have knowledge that wouldn't be the pure and undefiled knowledge of God. Again, it would be hard to have temperance if you didn't have the knowledge of God to help you be temperant; and I think it would be nearly impossible to have patience if you weren't temperant. I also think there is no way you could truly have Godliness if you didn't have all those other things first; and it would be hard to have true brotherly kindness if you weren't Godly first. My dad is always quoting the scripture that Charity is the end of a perfect work. I've never really thought what exactly was the perfect work it was the end of, but I think this scripture kind of explains that.

I have to say that my baby got loud, and I had to leave while Bro. Dennis was still up; so I don't know what all he said, but I was glad that God allowed me to hear what I heard.

Now to start working on my character building list.....