We are told this is a new age of enlightenment. People seek meaning in life and fresh understanding. But, instead of searching for something new, why not return to something familiar, even traditional, with a fresh veiwpoint? Our Creator has left us a carefully worded blueprint to follow for a successful, meaningFULL life. How much simpler life would be if we would simply look to that blueprint on a daily basis.
Today, I want to consider virtue. Many consider this an old fashioned word. Perhaps even a term indicating weakness. Virtue used to be so clear-cut. It was a term equated with honesty, loyalty, chasteness, and honorable behavior. In today's society, people feel justified in choosing their own values, like choosing groceries in a supermarket. Sadly, Virtue is rarely chosen as one of those values.
Sense of right and wrong is an essential component of virtue. As a teacher spanning a career of nearly forty years, I have personally witnessed tremendous changes in the attitudes of my students regarding their sense of right and wrong. In recent times, increasingly most young people I have had contact with have no idea what I was talking about when discussing how a sense of right and wrong guides how a person thinks and behaves. No wonder our world as we know it today is in so much turmoil!
In earlier times, the Church gave us instruction regarding the importance of maintaining our virtue. Sadly, many churches no longer teach moral guidelines. Rather than upholding righteous principles, they have made themselves part of the world and its evils. The Bible speaks of our present times in the book of 2nd Timothy where it foretold the present moral breakdown, including a lacking of virtue. "In the last days times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money...disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection...without love of goodness, ...headstrong...lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God.." (2nd Timothy 3:1-5) Virtue has no place in such a world.
So, what must we do to maintain virtue in a world so corrupt? We need to live life daily as if walking side by side with Christ. How differently we would speak, act, and think if we were walking with Him. In the letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote these encouraging words: "...whatever things are of serious concern, whatever things are righteous, whatever things are chaste, whatever things are loveable, whatever things are well spoken of, whatever virtue there is and whatever praiseworthy thing there is, continue considering these things." Peter also gives us encouragement when he wrote: "...supply to your faith virtue, to your virtue knowledge, to your knowledge self-control, to your self control endurance, to your endurance godly devotion, to your godly devotion botherly affection, to your brotherly affection love. for if these things exist in you and OVERFLOW, they will prevent you from being either inactive or unfruitful. " (2nd Peter 1:5-8) Cultivate what is virtuous and you will be fruitful in all that you do, all to the glory of God.
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