Real Hope: Radical TransformationSample

Development Of Virtue

I’m an Australian who married an American and have been exposed to the illusive ‘American dream’ that lingers when we journey back to my wife’s homeland – that there’s upward social mobility for all who work hard, that there are few barriers to achieving your dream life, a perfect family, the suburban house with a white picket fence, a labra-doodle named Max, a college education and tropical holidays twice a year. It implies deriving worth and success from external things and now reflects the value system of our world.

Jesus challenged this approach to life when He said, ‘What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?’ (Mark 8:36–37 NIV). With Jesus as his reference, Peter wrote a letter to a community of believers whose faith was being confronted with opposing ways of life. Peter’s encouragement to people under pressure and with doubts about their faith was not to run away, not to win the argument, not to react with force. He simply encouraged them to complement their faith with the inner development of virtue like in the scripture above. God does not transform a life from the outside in but from the inside out. As followers of Jesus, our value system is transformed. Rather than measuring our days by emails sent, KPIs achieved, or other external gauges, what would happen if, with the help of the Holy Spirit, you began to measure your days by virtue?

Written by SAM FAGAN

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