Advancing Encouragement By:
Bishop James Jr. Hairston

2Peter: 1:5: And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

It takes faith and courage to be able to break out from the world and all the lust that it holds where your flesh keep telling you to go back and enjoy the worlds lustful desires. It takes faith and courage to escape strong enticements to go into the world to fulfill your lustful desires and passions of the flesh but you start to fight it with all that you have within you that is the strength and power of Jesus Christ! We cannot escape this wretched body that we live in but we can put off the desires of this wretched body and all that the flesh can offer under the power and direction of the Holy Spirit by our Lord Jesus Christ, Ephesians 4:22! The word virtue in the text means courage, valor and excellence. Thus, faith without valor, faith without courage and faith without excellence we will not be able to stand and fight off worldly lust! In this passage it began with ‘and’ which is connected to what was said before. Therefore, in verse 4 say’s that we have been given exceeding great precious promises that by them we might be partakers of Gods divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Hence by having these exceeding great promises and by taking on God’s divine nature we escape worldly lust and in doing so we add to our faith courage, valor, and excellence in Jesus name. In other words this is all happening simultaneously because we are holding on to Gods word and His promises while walking in His divine nature, we are adding to our faith courage. There is no separation from verse 4 and 5 while they are connected together under Gods direct anointing to enable us to simultaneously walk in them. In addition, this virtue, valor and courage operating in excellence is added to knowledge which is the act of knowing how to walk in God’s promises, to walk in God’s divine nature and knowing how to escape the corruption that is in the world through lust! Today if you want to escape this corrupt generation under the power of God’s anointing through Jesus Christ, you cannot be weak you have to be strong to survive! God wants His people to have faith and courage to take this world by storm by His Holiness and righteousness without weakness but strong in the Lord and the power of His might! Today my friend it is time to stand with faith and courage, it is time to stand with faith and valor and it is time to stand in excellence not giving up the fight for the Lord and Stand. God will give you the escapable power from the corruption of this world in Jesus Name…

James Jr. Hairston