When we accept the Lord, He will provide us 3-things in our life: Righteousness, Grace and Peace:
- Righteousness: God’s Righteousness becomes our righteousness and we are given a right standing before God (2 Cor. 5:21). It is the gift of God to those who believe. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus 3:5).
- Grace: Grace is God’s favour to the undeserving. God in His mercy does not give us what we do deserve; God in His grace gives us what we don’t deserve. Our God is “the God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10), and He channels that grace to us through Jesus Christ (John 1:16).
- Peace: This is peace of God (Phil. 4:6-7) as we walk with Him and trust His promises.
When we accept the Lord, we are born into God’s family (Jn.1:12). Just as a baby has a definite genetic structure that determines how he will grow, so the believer is “genetically structured” to experience “glory and virtue.” One day we will be like the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Jn. 3:2). When we have God’s nature, our appetite should also be of same. Just as nature determines for a pig who wants to slop and dog will even eat its own vomit. The nature also determines the behaviour just as an eagle flies because it has an eagle’s nature and a dolphin swims because that is the nature of the dolphin. Nature determines environment: squirrels climb trees, moles burrow underground, and trout swim in the water. Nature also determines association: lions travel in prides, sheep in flocks, and fish in schools. So we have been “called… to His eternal glory” (1 Pet. 5:10), and we shall share that glory when Jesus Christ returns and takes His people to heaven.
Virtues of God: (1:5-11):
Peter listed seven characteristics of the godly life, but we must not think of them as seven beads on a string or even seven stages of development. The word translated “add” really means develop simultaneously. These graces relate to each other the way the branch relates to the trunk and the twigs to the branch. Like the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23), these qualities grow out of life and out of a vital relationship with Jesus Christ. It is not enough for the Christian to “let go and let God,” as though spiritual growth were God’s work alone. Peter wrote, “Make every effort to bring alongside which means The Father and the child must work together.
- Virtue: Virtue means “excellence or the fulfilment of a thing or moral excellence.” The land that produces crops is “excellent” because it is fulfilling its purpose. The tool that works correctly is “excellent” because it is doing what a tool is supposed to do. Similarly a Christian is supposed to glorify God because he has God’s nature within; so, when he does this, he shows “excellence” because he is fulfilling his purpose in life. True virtue in the Christian life is not “polishing” human qualities, no matter how fine they may be, but producing divine qualities that make the person more like Jesus Christ.
- Knowledge: Virtue helps us to develop knowledge. The word used here suggests practical knowledge or discernment. It refers to the ability to handle life successfully. It is the opposite of being “so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly good! Or so earthly minded as to be of no good for heaven.” But the knowledge or the wisdom of God comes from obedience to the will of God (Jn. 7:17).
- Temperance: means self-control. “Better a patient man than a warrior a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.” Paul often writes about that a Christian has to exercise his temper and discipline himself to win the prize (1 Cor.9:24-27). Self control is handling the pleasures of life.
- Patience: is the ability to endure when circumstances are difficult. Patience relates primarily to the pressures and problems of life while the ability to endure problem is longsuffering. Often, the person who gives in to pleasures is not disciplined enough to handle pressures either, so he “gives up.” Patience is not something that develops automatically; we must work at it (Jam.1:2-8) gives us the right approach. We must expect trials to come, because without trials we could never learn patience. We must, by faith, let our trials work for us and not against us, because we know that God is at work in our trials. If we need wisdom in making decisions, God will grant that wisdom if we ask Him (Jam.1:5).
- Godliness: Godliness simply means “God-likeness.” In the original Greek, this word meant “to worship well.” It described the man who was right in his relationship with God and with his fellow man. The person who has the quality of Godliness is very He lives above the petty things of life, the passions and pressures that control the lives of others. He seeks to do the will of God and, as he does, he seeks the welfare of others.