Day 10: Virtue

Doing all things for the glory of God

Virtue, which may also be translated as moral excellence, transcends mere good works. Virtue is lifestyle of action and attitude that is a response to the understanding that; a) all things belong to God (c.f. Romans 11.33-36); b) He is glorious (Psalm 24); c) we—as His people—have the honor and stewardship of living out that truth (1 Peter 2.9). Therefore, to be virtuous, is to live a life of integrity—integrity of action and attitude—for the glory of God (Colossians 3).

• Read 2 Peter 1.5-8
• In what areas of your life is God inviting you to apply virtue to?

God is really tugging at me to apply virtue to those areas of my life where I choose to take the reigns in the light of someone else’s lack of responsibility. Often times, I will see someone who’s completely uncommitted to a project or idea, struggling to pull it off and I immediately see a reason to help. Before I know it, I’m left with the entire thing for myself and the other person has jumped ship. There are times when this happens that I just do enough to skirt by, but make sure to at least do it better than it would have been done. I rarely give projects like that 100% of my effort. Usually because by the time it really gets down to the nitty gritty, I’ve become disgusted with myself for having jumped in, in the first place!

• How is God inviting you to practice virtue within your community?

Maybe this is part of God’s purpose for me. Maybe I was intended to be a sort of “clean-up” girl… a crisis manager. I’m pretty good at it. I know there are times when God is inviting me to give 100% effort as opposed to 10%, but on the basis of “principle,” I have refused to listen to Him in the past. No matter what I do, whether it’s my project or the mangled start of someone else’s… I must give the Lord at least 100% of my effort and put aside my personal agenda of being sure that the “irresponsible” party is found out.