The Benefits And Operations of the 7 Divine Strengths

II Peter 1v5&8 [KJV] "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. 8 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." With our first lesson I spoke on the first phrase of verse 5 “And besides this, giving all diligence,” I then gave the interpretation of the word Diligence. As a recap let me give the interpretation again to strengthen our closure. DILIGENCE: - The persistence and hardworking effort in doing something. - To take care or attention, - Assiduousness, thoroughness Fellow friend, within your hands were placed tools, keys or strengths that are able to make you an incredible person, husband, wife, brother, sister, employee, employer, whatever your life style or position in life might be. These inspired keys there were delivered in a lesson were served to you to bring transformation in your destiny, the question is, what are you going to do about it. The title of these lessons sounds real nice for a best seller, but that’s not what I was targeting. To really make this lessons work you’ve got to take a persistent and hardworking effort to do this. You got to take care and be assiduous about this. In other words “...giving all diligence” It’s not easy but it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE. Now let us look at verse 8 “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The next word that I would like us to look at is the word ABOUND. The apostle is saying “For if these things be in you, and abound,” There are two key combinations that will produce the results for you and that is Diligence and to Abound. Abound: To be present in large numbers or quantities. - Proliferate – reproduce, breed, multiply, prosper, produce offspring. So if we read verse 8 with the following interpretation it would sound like this; “If these things be in you, in large quantities, and they reproduce they make you that you shall neither be barren (unproductive, unfruitful. Infertile) in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” The NIV states “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” What kills the sufferer of the HIV/AIDS virus is the infertility (low CD count) of the white blood cells that strengths the immune system. When these blood cells are not present in large quantities and reproduce themselves, the body weakens and any virus / bacteria will affect the body and the person dies of the strongest virus that was prevalent. So will it be with your divine nature. When the 7 Divine Strengths will not reproduce themselves in you and they diminish, because you give to much attention to your outer being, your inner being which is the divine nature will become corrupt. Your speech will become corrupt, your attitude will become corrupt, and the good opinion and views of others will become uninteresting and stale for you. The best thing to do to live a sound, fruitful and prosperous life; is not to fool around with things that are ineffective to a glorious life, but to abstain. Abstain from all things that are in contrast to the 7 Divine Strengths. They say it is not easy to stick to a diet. That is true if you are not, 1) Committed, 2) Diligent, and 3) Weak to Resistance. Talking about abstinence, the word of God is very clear on this. I Thessalonians 5v22 “Abstain from all appearance (look, manifestation, development) of evil.” In 1Peter 2v11 “…as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against your soul;” As we can see that it is the outer things that destroys the inner being. I said in the previous chapter that I was going to speak more in depth on our two natures. In John 3v6 Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Your outer person, which is born of the flesh, is flesh. It is the compilation of the DNA of your parents that resulted in the eyes of your mother the pigmentation of either etc., or not necessary the characteristic of either. You may sound like your dad, but you may not speak like your dad. Your outer appearance is flesh and within the flesh dwells no good thing. Romans 7v18 [KJV] “For I know that in me (that is in my flesh,) dwelleth good thing:” In the NIV translation we have this interpretation “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” The only way to carry out the good is to submit your self to the will of the Spirit because if you have been born again of the Spirit, “…that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” you will overcome the nature of the flesh. The nature of the flesh cannot think of the things of the nature of the Spirit, because they are in contrast one to the other. The results that you produce in your life are determined by the production of your nature. You sow what you reap. In the process of reproduction God had made it as follows. According to Genesis 1v 11& 12 God said “let the earth bring forth grass and the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth and it was so”. This makes it very clear to understand that whatever come from you is what is within you. If the 7 Divine Strengths or qualities reproduce themselves within you, you will produce seeds and fruit after the kind that is within you. Because quality is reproduced within your inner being everything and everywhere you will produce quality. Everything you touch will turn in to quality. Everything you say will be of quality, because there is a continues proliferation of quality things forming and developing inside of you. It is the great content (inside & insight) of a book that makes a great book and not a great title (outer) that sells the book. You may bear a great title (outer appearance) but you may not bear great content (inner self) and insight. In final I would just briefly like to speak on one remarkable man. This man had within his life strength that was hidden in seven levels, seven locks, and this man was Samson. What made Samson strong was not because he was muscle bound neither because he was a Nazarene, but because he had hidden divine strength. When Samson finally revealed the secret of his strength to a woman that was paid to destroy him In Judges 16v17 he said these words to her, “…if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” The next thing they did to Samson was they took out his eyes. This is so true what Peter says in the 9th verse. “But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins” So what was the results of Samson’s life? He was weak just like any other man and he was blind. Not only could he not see afar off, he couldn’t see at all. The Lord Jesus said these profound words in Luke 12v15 “…a man’s life consisted not in the abundance of things which he possesseth” In 1963 Dr Martin Luther King Jr., made this statement in a speech the “Strength of Love” “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”. The question is; how will you be standing? 7 DIVINE STRENGTHS WILL MAKE YOU.