Week 2: Worldly Virtues
The world has different truths for every thing, situation and person. Worldly truth is always changing. One of these changed truths is that virtues don’t depend on morality. Morals are not really necessary when the world thinks of virtue or what a virtuous person might look like.
The virtues that are important and praised in the world are selfish. They want everyone to know that it’s okay to put yourself above all others, without regard for anyone else, because you are the most important. Another virtue the world teaches is self-love and how you are perfect just the way you are. The virtues of the world are self centered.
When you believe the mindset that you’re the most important in the room and you deserve what you want no matter what, what does that look like for a wife? For a husband? What is that teaching our children?
We have value. We have divine value, divine identities and purposes. But are we more important than anyone else? No. Does what we want trump what might be best for our children and families? No.
The values and virtues of the world are shallow and they do not lead to happiness. They lead to confusion, sadness and selfishness. What’s hard about pinning down the virtues of the world are that they are always changing. They depend on what’s in the news, or what the celebrities of the day say.
On the other hand, God’s truth is unchanged. 2 Peter 1:5 tells us to add virtue to everything we have in our lives, “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.” We know what virtues we should add to our lives. It’s not easy all the time. It’s hard to be faithful in the midst of trials. It’s hard to have self-control when our favorite cup is on sale. It’s hard to show affection to people who are not kind to us.
Thank goodness for God. Thank goodness for His mercy when we struggle to be virtuous. And thank goodness that we know what true virtue looks like.
Next week, we’ll revisit some people with great virtue from the Bible.
Scriptures to Study: 1 John 3:18, Ephesians 6:14, John 1:17, John 4:24, John 14:6
Journal Questions:
- What is one worldly truth that you’ve let become more important than God’s truth?
- How can we become more in tune with God’s truth?
- How has the truth of what our purpose is here on Earth led your life?