Eight Virtues that Confirm Your Calling by Christ

Introduction - - - - - 2 Foreword - - - - - 4 Dedication - - - - - 5 Acknowledgement - - - - 6 Chapter One: Faith in Christ Jesus - - 6 Chapter two: Living a Virtuous Life - - 26 Chapter three: Knowledge of the Word of God- 32 Chapter Four: An Attitude of Temperance - 41 Chapter Five: A Life of Patience - - 47 Chapter Six: A Life of Godliness - - 53 Chapter Seven: Living a Life of Kindness - 64 Chapter Eight: A Life of Charity or Love - 71 Conclusion - - - - - 78 CHAPTER ONE FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS Faith in general is the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true. Its primary idea is trust. Faith is belief in God, a doctrine or teaching of a religion. Let’s look at what Apostle Paul says in. (Phil 1:27) 27 Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. (KJV); This shows that faith is a belief that a thing is true, and therefore worthy of trust. In accordance with the evidence on which it rests, faith in its direct act makes Christ ours and faith is necessary for our salvation as stated in the scripture. (Mark 16:16) 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. (KJV); Similarly, faith is having full confidence on something putting it in mind that if you believe it with all your heart it will provide a positive result at all times. Faith and belief work hand in hand there are some situations in life that without faith you can’t get out of that. Learn from this testimony about faith. I was with a friend who told me his testimony that he applied for recruitment into the Nigerian army but he did not have the requirements which was four credits includingEnglish. Though he did not have credit in English, he took a step of faith and applied. As faith will have it, when it came to the final stage of the screening where the original documents were to be checked, he told me he had a short prayer that, “God I believe in you and I need your help, if you really want me to be a soldier; please go ahead of me now”, and God did answer his prayer. The officer in charge checked just his birth certificate and primary School certificate and said “go am done with you”. The young man is now serving, and he is doing well as a military man. That is faith. He believed and trusted in God, so God heard and answered him. In life, whenever you have faith in God your life will be full of wonders and all people will see. As contained in the following scriptures: (Heb 11:1-3) 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good report. 3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (KJV); (Heb 8:10) 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: (KJV); (Heb 11:8-9) 8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: (KJV); All these are the works of faith that our ancestors did. Faith is a key to God’s heart and the path of his kingdom; that is why he said, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to that mountain be uprooted and plant yourself in the sea and it will obey. Faith is having authority over something and situations around you. Be that as it may, even if your faith can’t move mountains, it can give you the power to climb over them. For example, if you beat a child, no matter how big you are or whatever you do to that child, his response will be, “I will tell my father”. You can even be stronger than his father, but what he knows is that he has a father that will always defend him. He believes and has faith in his father; that is how you are supposed to be too. Believe and have faith in God, he has never failed and will never ever fail you. That is why God said, “I am that I am”and “the one who was, who is and is to come”. The bible says without faith, it is impossible to please God, so you have to develop your faith in God to enable you please him. Let’s look at the life of an ancient king, Jehoshaphat. The scripture says, he did what was right, he followed the ways of his father, Asa, and then he did exploit, for God. By faith, he did what God asked him to do and won the war. Imagine following the musicians to face an army that is fully armed for a battle. It will sound or look crazy, but with God, it is real sense. When you believe God you will do things that the world will see as crazy, but it is the way out. There are many things that look impossible, but you can make it possible by faith. The scripture says,“he that is in you is greater than the one in the world”. You have all it takes to make things happen, it has already been given to you. Elisha believed that it was possible to get double of his master’s anointing and after he received it, he believed that he could do the same miracle and even greater than his master, that was why he too parted the Jordan River. You are full of abilities given by God, all you just need is faith in him to activate them; God said, I have given you power that can only work when you have faith and believe that it will work for you. He also said; fear not, for I am always with you. No one has ever seen God, but he said, I am always with you. You can only acknowledge his being with you by faith. I want to ask you the following questions? Have you ever seen your soul or your spirit being? But you believe that you have one, it is faith. What you have never seenbut you have it in mind that it exists; that is the kind of mind-set you ought to have when it comes to God. Here is another testimony of a woman that never heard about God. The doctor gave her daughter just 24hours to live because of a heart problem. She then left her daughter at home and went out to the street confused, but she then heard some men preaching Christ and they said Jesus can do all things if you believe and have faith in him. Hearing this, she rushed to them and said “I want him to help me”, I seriously need his help. Then, they said to her, you can talk to him, he is here his name is Jesus. So, she then said, Jesus I want you to help me, my daughter has just been given 24hours to live by the doctor, please save her for me, she is all I have. If you go down this street she is in the bedroom the third house by the right, you are free to just enter because even if you knock she can’t come to open the door, so just enter and heal her for me, please. After this, the men of God said Amen, they went to the house together, on reaching the house, they met the daughter coming out strong and healthy and they praised God and she accepted Christ into her life. This is sure faith, she heard of him once and put her trust in him and she received a miracle. I want to tell you this today, trust even if you have no reason to; he said he honors his words more than his name, and that the word, which he speaks to you is life. Two things which will always make your faith active are as follows: 1. The scripture or the bible is the only book whose writings are alive and true, the bible is the dictionary of life, all the principles of life are there. To eternity, the contents of the Bible will never change. (2 Kings 2:22) 22So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake. (KJV); See, how the life in the word works to this day, in 20,000 years to come it will still be to this day. 2. Act on the word; if you read the word, make it practical, because faith without work is dead. No matter the amount of faith you have, if you don’t put it to practice, you are like the one that doesn’t have it at all. In this generation, we need men and women of faith. The scripture says, the creation wait eagerly for the manifestation of the sons of God, and you can only manifest by faith. This generation need people who will stand and make decrees by faith just as Elisha did; men and women that will stand and say sin your time is up pack and leave my life, and it will happen; people who will determine the politics of this country; men and women of faith who will declare unity in the body of Christ in this country; people of faith that will go to the street and declare God’s power and heal the sick; men and women of faith that will go to the market squares and proclaim the name of our God to all. All these reflect faith in action. Consider this story as an illustration of faith in action. A man of God was on transit, so the conductor of his vehicle was in a little conflict with one old man about the balance of his money. The old man asked for his balance and the conductor said he will give him latter, because he didn’t have the money at the moment. But the old man said he must give him now or he will make him eat sand. Having failed to give the balance, the old man commanded the conductor to eat sand and immediately he started eating sand. The man of God in the car got angry in his Spirit and told the old man, if you don’t stop him from eating sand now you will join him too. The man knows his God and has faith in him and believes that he will never fail him, so he also commanded the old man, in the name of Jesus Christ, eat sand, and immediately the old man started eating the sand too. If you have faith, do away with fear and put your faith to action and see wonders. David said, though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. He said it with boldness without fear in him. God has already said in his word, if you believe in me greater things will you do. I know there are projects you have on ground, why not take a step of faith today, go ahead and it will be a success story through God. Know this today that God’s covenant with human is that they should always have victory in all they do. Faith takes you very far in life where no man can take you. In the scripture, there are a number of people who had full faith in God, like Paul who always encouraged that you should guard that faith with all diligence. The moment you have faith in Christ Jesus you will not be afraid of anything that will come your way, you will have the boldness of a lion towards every challenges of life. A pastor shared what happened with one of his members. He got married and refused to take his wife to his village that there were witches there, but the pastor said he had never seen a witch in his life and so he was going to join him to his village. He said it will be a great experience for him to also die. He said, if I die there it will be a nice thing for me, just as what Paul has already said, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.Being so resolute, they embark on the journey to the village. On reaching there in the evening, the villagers came together and the pastor asked them, if there is anyone here that is a witch please let me see his/her hands up. No one responded he preached to them and all gave their life to Christ. This happened because he had faith, and also took a bold step. It is obvious that if he had no faith and was afraid, the people would not have heard about Jesus. This implies that in fighting the enemy be the first to attack by faith. The enemy cannot do anything if you have faith in God to attack first. The pastor was able to lead all who heard his message to Christ because even though it was his first time in the village, he worked with what the bible said, “the earth is of the Lord and his fullness there off”. Therefore where ever you find yourself be bold and proclaim God’s name, because the Lord has already said, the righteous shall inherit the earth. This is a sure promise of God that, if only you can have faith it will surely work. Here is another testimony of a woman who tested positive for H.I.V. With faith she went to her pastor and asked him to help her with all the verses in the bible that talk about healing. He gave her the verses and she went to her house, closed the door. She first asked for forgiveness of her sins. She then read the bible and prayed for 30days indoors. In her prayers, she said, God, this is your word, I believe it and I want to experience your healing power in my body now. After 30days, she came out and went straight to the hospital and told the doctor to test her again, and she was tested to be negative. She told him to test her ten times he did and she was negative. This is how faith and believe in the living word of God will work in your life. Faith in Christ is a saving grace in which we receive and rest upon him alone for our salvation. As the Lord promised us in the gospel, faith is there to reveal to us the effect of God’s word onto mankind, so the special act of faith is what unites us with Christ as one. As reflected in the following scriptures (John 7:38) 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (KJV); (Acts 16:31-32) 31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. 32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. (KJV); Theseare some of the promises of God and you can only appropriate them in your life by faith. It is only by faith that you obtain forgiveness of your sins and are justified before God. (Rom 3:22-26) 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (KJV); (Gal 2:16-17) 16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. 7 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. (KJV); (Phil 3:9-10) 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: (KJV); (Acts 10:43-44) 43 To him give all the prophets’ witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. (KJV); These are some of the bases of our faith in Christ Jesus. These are things that make us lean on Jesus as the mediator of our life. Here is a testimony of a security personnel and his team on a mission. On their way someone stopped them and said there was danger ahead and that they should go back. But as an officer who knows Christ and he believes that God always gives victory over the enemy, he said to his team, we are not going back, the only thing to do is do not allow the enemy to attack first. And they did what he said and they were able to win the enemy on their way. That problem you have now, you need just a little faith and to attack first; you will surely win the battle. The devil will always remind you about your past life, but know this today that faith in Christ Jesus secures for a believer freedom form condemnation.For you to partake in the divine life that is given by God, you need to believe in the following scriptures: (John 14:19) 19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. (KJV); (Rom 6:4) 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (KJV); (Acts 26:18) 18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (KJV); (Acts 15:9) 9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. (KJV); The foregoing scriptures constitute the living word and if you believe, it will be part of your life, because faith cometh by hearing and hearing by doing the work of God. So this is the bases that will save you as a believer and to have confidence in him as reflected in the following scriptures: (John 6:37-38) 37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (KJV); (John 10:28-29) 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. (KJV); (Rom 8:1-2) 1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (KJV); It is only faith that will make this work. Many at times, as a child of God, the devil can bring some accusations and make you feel you are not worthy to be on the track. The devil may say you have not been saved totally and all kinds of accusations to make you weak. But I tell you, if you can have a little faith and believe in the scripture you will challenge the devil. Remember these words,no one will pluck you out of his hands. It is high time we guard the gospel that we have received with all diligence and all our strength, as admonished in the following scriptures: (Gal 1:23-24) 23 But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. 24 And they glorified God in me. (KJV); (1 Tim 3:9-10) 9 Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. 10 And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless. (KJV); (Jude 3) 3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. (KJV); That was how it all started and our forerunners guarded the faith with every sense of diligence. Our generation seems to lack commitment and diligence. Even though we have the God that is alive and is everywhere, we are lukewarm and do not take his words and commands seriously. Whatever we need in life depends on our belief and trust in him, we have a promise of life everlasting at the end. Why then can we not just believe him and have faith in his word, he is a God that cannot put us to shame. He never sleeps nor slumbers. He was the one that formed you from your mother’s womb, why then do you allow little things to distract you in your Christian life? In running the race, you have to be blind to all distractions so that you will not miss on the way, when you are blind to such distractions you will focus on where you are going. For you to be a highly honored man of God or a believer of Christ, you can only stand firm and please him if you have faith in him. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and it is only by taking away doubt about the impossibility of some situations and conditions,but believing that all is possible through faith in Christ Jesus that will make you and your ministry move forward. Make it a duty today, trust God even if you do not have reason to, and you will experience his power at work in all you do.