2 Peter 1:5-7

Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we are releasing a daily devotional episode for your marriage. And over these 66 days, we're going to pull out one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talk about how it applies to your marriage. So if you listen to every single one of these episodes, you're going to have a comprehensive understanding of God's plan for your marriage. We encourage you to listen to everyone. Let's dive into today's scripture.

Hey, guys. Welcome back to Summer of Scripture. We are in day. On day 61, in second Peter, chapter one, verses five through seven. It says this. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence. And moral excellence with knowledge. And knowledge. With self control. And self control. With patient endurance. And patient endurance. With godliness. And godliness. With brotherly affection. And brotherly affection. With love for everyone. I love this. I love how it just keeps going with all these good things and kind of our walk with the Lord, how we need to be growing in the Lord in these things.

Now, I don't know if you remember this, but we were on. We were once having. We were on a cruise, okay? And we were sitting next to this young couple, and the guy had been part of. I think Young Life was the organization that he'd been part of, which, you know, mentors and disciples. Apologize, folks. And he had this scripture tattooed.

He did, yes, on him.

And he said. Because he said, in his mind, it's a template. It's a simple list that anybody can follow of the progression of how our.

Faith should grow, how it grows, right?

And I think that that's really accurate. Peter's here saying, like all of us, we've got to supplement our faith. So it starts with faith. Faith is the first step. And then we build on that with moral excellence, meaning, like, we raise our moral standard. We live by God's standards and morals. And then with knowledge on top of that, meaning, we learn more about God's word.

Reading the word, right?

And then self control, which is one of the fruits of the spirit, which means that we become disciplined. And that discipline gives us influence and freedom and all kinds of great things. And then with self control, patient endurance, because all this takes time. And then we add to patient endurance godliness, which is something God develops within us as we walk with him. And then on top of that, brotherly affection. And then it ends with. And then it ends with love. Like, love is the highest. It's the pinnacle. So it starts with faith. And we're constantly building towards just becoming more loving. Like, love is the litmus test. Even Jesus said that, that this is how people will know you're my disciples. It's not because of the bumper sticker on your car or your T shirt or any of that. It's that you love each other. You genuinely love each other. And so that's what we're moving towards. And I think those few simple verses, they are just a nice clear roadmap of where we should be headed as Christians. And if you'll do these within your marriage, if you'll do all these things for your spouse, become more patient and show more affection and all that, man, your marriage is going to grow stronger too.

Absolutely. And I think that I love how it is a progression, but also these require action. Like, you know, it's. There's action to this. Like when you're supplementing your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence. It takes practice. Right, Moral excellence. Like to live out these standards that God has put before us. You know, taking care of the body he's given us, reading our Bible, praying every day, going to activities where we can help other people, like serving in the kingdom of God. I think that, you know, talking about the knowledge and just maybe joining a Bible study, it takes our time, our resources, our effort. And we tend to love and grow in love for something when we put effort and time and resources and action to it. And that's just kind of how we work as human beings. It's how God wired us up. And that's kind of what you find is you're going to. You're loving, you're gonna love more of what you're putting all of that towards. Exactly. And I do think that, I mean, what a great effort to put in your marriage. You know, you want to have more love for each other. You want to grow in your knowledge of the Lord. You want to grow in doing good and following through with these moral standards that God has put in place and living out a life that is pleasing to Jesus. And I think that it's just amazing how much we can grow in that. Instead of just kind of getting stuck with doing what we've always been doing, we always wanna be growing. You know, it's not that we're never gonna be perfect on this side of heaven, but we are gonna be able to progress. Like we wanna have progress. Right. And so that means that we have to take action. We have to do these things and out of joy. I mean, there's joy in doing this and growing, and it's little by little.

It's little by little.

Yeah.

But if we stay on the path and we keep growing, then there's blessing in it.

There is. There is. And I would say, too, a conversation you could have about this is like, how can we grow more in any of these things? Like, how can we each grow more individually and grow more together?

Yeah. Maybe just circle one on that list and say, which one of these would we really benefit the most from adding to. And how. What would it look like for us to grow in that area in our marriage and. And focus on that. Pray about that. Work at it together, and God will bless it. He wants to give you these things, guys. Again, like, these are things God wants you to have. These are gifts he wants you to embody. And so don't overcomplicate it. You know, ask him for what you need. Strive for it, work together for it. And God's gonna. He's gonna do the rest, right? He really will. Hey, guys, thanks for tuning in. Tomorrow we're gonna be in day 62 looking at the book of First John. See you then.