Qualities that lead to fruitfulness
Don’t stop and don’t be stuck.
Grow these qualities in yourself through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that you will be fruitful and effective for the good work that God has for you to do.
Don’t Hold Back
God has a purpose and a plan for all of our lives. When we truly are sincere about fulfilling the purpose that He has called us for, we submit everything to Him. When we fully submit to Him, with no holding back, we align ourselves with his will for our lives.
This post is a collection of verses/passages
These verses from 2 Peter are packed with so many qualities that we need to always to be increasing in our own lives. This post is really just a collection of verses/passages related to these qualities that I find help me to think about who I need to be as a Christian and I hope it helps you too.
Break out your Bible!
Most importantly, I recommend pulling out your own Bible, preferably the one with paper pages and getting in it daily with prayer and full submission to God, because it is only with the constant help of His precious Holy Spirit that we can truly be transformed into who He has made us to be, fruitful Christians sharing the gospel and being a light in this world. 💕
The passage inspiring this post-ESV:
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
2 Peter 1:5-8 ESV
The passage inspiring this post-KJV:
“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.”
2 Peter 1:5-8 KJV
The Qualities laid out in that passage- with other related verses:
Virtue
Moral excellence is the best definition I can come up with for virtue here. Christ is our example.
Knowledge
Insight and understanding
“For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;”
Proverbs 2:6 ESV
Self-Control/Temperance
Restrain yourself from satisfying your flesh and submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit as He guides you to make the right choices.
“I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
1 Timothy 2:8-15 ESV
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
Titus 2:3-5 ESV
Steadfastness/Patience
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
Colossians 3:12-13 ESV
Godliness
“For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”
I Timothy 4:8 NKJV
Brotherly Affection/Brotherly Kindness
“Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.”
Romans 12:9-13 NKJV
Love/Charity
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV
“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Matthew 5:44-45 NKJV
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Philippians 2:3-11 ESV