Love, joy, and peace are not the fruit of the Christian but of the Spirit. Such qualities cannot possibly come from Adam though he try with all his might. They can come only as a human being meditates in the Scriptures to discover how he should be behaving, and then goes to the Lord for help. The Lord gives His Spirit to those who obey Him, and it is the Spirit who creates the image of Christ in us.

The necessity for righteous behavior.

The faith required for righteous behavior.

What righteous behavior is.

Steps toward attaining righteous behavior.

If we hope to be raised from the dead and caught up to meet the Lord in the air we must be righteous in character and behavior. No believer who has not added the qualities of personality described in Second Peter has any hope of ascending to meet the Lord in His Day. Such moral transformation (another way of saying the formation of Christ in us) is absolutely necessary if we are to participate in the establishing of the Kingdom of God on the earth.

We must have faith that Jesus is able to transform us. The Christian churches often have maintained it is impossible to rise above sin while we are in the present world. The Scriptures do not agree with this point of view.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. (Romans 6:12—NIV)

The New Testament informs us we can gain victory over sin through Jesus Christ. This will not take place in our personality until we are willing to mix faith with the Word of God.

Righteous behavior comprises those kinds of actions that generally are considered by Christians and non-Christians alike as being righteous and godly. They correspond to the voice of conscience. The only people on earth, apparently, who are confused concerning the nature of righteous behavior are the Christians.

If you want to know what righteous behavior is, ask an unsaved person.

We have listed several verses of Scripture that exhort us to stop sinning and do the will of God, to exercise a strong hand over our flesh. The Spirit of the Lord will enable us to do this and will add the Virtue of Jesus Christ to us.

The choice is ours. We can choose to be the slave of righteousness and thus be qualified to be a member of the Body of Christ, the Servant of the Lord.

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. (Romans 6:16,17—NIV)

It is a case of obeying the form of teaching to which we were committed.

We can choose to obey the teaching and live, or we can choose to be a slave to sin and thus kill our own spiritual life, our hope of attaining the first resurrection from the dead.

The wages (for all people, including Christians) of sin is spiritual death. The gift of the opportunity to attain eternal life has been given us from the Lord. Will we receive it and act on it? (from Four Aspects of Righteousness; from The Stature of the Fullness of Christ)