You have been given the God-kind of faith. Although you have been given the God-kind of faith, you have to add some seasoning to your faith. Faith just does not "taste right" until certain seasonings have been added to it. It is like adding hot sauce to fried chicken.
Faith And Virtue
Faith is where you begin. It is not where you end. You begin at faith and build on from there.
Virtue is like the hot sauce of faith. Chicken just does not taste right to me unless I can add some hot sauce to it! Some folks say I don't really know what chicken tastes like, because I am always smothering it in hot sauce. But I don't want to know what chicken tastes like without it. Neither do you want to have faith without virtue.
You can believe God and have faith to move mountains and speak the Word only; but if, at the same time, you are living an immoral life, you will stumble and fall, even with all your faith!
But we don't want to stumble and fall. We want to stride and succeed.
The Greek word for virtue means moral goodness, moral excellence. In other words, it is saying you are to add morality to your faith.
Do you know what morals are? Being moral means following God's law. God's law says that two people who are married to each other legally are allowed to have sex. No one else. God's law says that stealing is wrong. It is God's law that keeps you looking at Jesus.
If you are moral, you won't get AIDS. If you are living morally, you won't wind up in jail. When you seek to live a moral life according to God's standards, then success in life will follow. Allow the Word of God to be the standard by which you live. And that standard will cause you to succeed every time.
Scripture References: James 4:17; Acts 10:38; 1 Peter 2:21-22
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