An excellent choice

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8)

Moral turpitude is a big way of saying a person exhibits behavior that is CONTRARY to the standards set forth by law, a community, or God. When someone has a problem with their behavior that is contrary to these standards, they're exhibiting behavior that may be vile, shameful or even corrupt. God's plan is for us to grow in his grace - to develop a moral standard that matches his standards. He took great pains to lay out those standards for us in scripture. Are we taking as great of pains to live according to those standards?

Moral excellence is possible, but one must submit to the inner working of the Spirit of God. So many times, often without even thinking, someone will say they have been 'trying' to live differently - to make better choices. What they are really saying is that they haven't really given the full control of their life over to Jesus and as a result, they continue to struggle with choices that are CONTRARY to God's commands. The command is to 'respond to' God's provision - because he provides all we need in order to live according to those standards.

The command is not to 'try' and 'try again' - it is to respond to his grace, lean into it, and trust him to finish the work he began in us when we said 'yes' to Jesus. God's grace requires a response - one lays down their agenda or plan for how things might 'work out' and listens, responds to, and delights in God's plan for how things WILL work out. Grace is embraced, not 'worked out' by a constant trial and error method. The moment we ask God for grace to face a temptation, what do you think he gives us? The strength to resist it, walk away from it, and embrace a different set of actions that align with his plan for our lives.

Moral excellence isn't a set of rules we must keep. It is a heart response to grace, embraced over and over again until our behavior no longer is motivated by what once drug us down into the pit of sin. It is a continual choice to allow grace to embrace those weaker areas of our lives until one day, sometimes without us even realizing it has happened, we are no longer struggling to resist those temptations. Just sayin!