We all have an inherent vehicle designed to take care of ourselves. This desire that has been placed within us to see our walk of life sought out and fulfilled in the most that it can be. However, we all have a propensity and opportunity to choose fear and selfishness over love and selflessness. These two things go a long way and characterize the exact person Peter describes in the first parts of his second letter. Someone who functions in brotherly love will have virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, and brotherly love. There are great lengths the enemy goes to try to corrupt this image that came out of the mind of God, and as with all lists that have a foundation to continue growing, he will attack the first thing on the list. If you look at the world we live in you will see that virtue is something very few people truly possess and most will argue is pliable to the specific situation that you're living in. This is the exact corruption that we all see yet no one has half a mind to do anything about except say things like the post markers in front of abortion clinics, the intercessors in their prayer closet, those idea throwers on college campus. This, in and of itself, is a corruption of the virtue and integrity the Lord would have us walk in. This is the bias that we allow ourselves to live with though. That we accept and seem to even take in pride that we have done enough, that the work we were created to do doesn't require that much honesty, that the conversation we know we need to have with that person can wait until they figure it out on their own.
This angers the heart of God. If you can't even walk in integrity, do you really expect him to expand your territory? And you know what the crazy thing about praying to the Lord is? He is gentle enough that He will answer your prayer even though you don't deserve it! As proof that He is Lord, and that He is loving and kind. That by no means insinuates that he is unrighteous or isn't counting the sins that you've made against him, but He knows that putting more responsibility on you will be the fastest way to make you grow. The pressure of a leadership position is the most complete and fastest way for you to finally decide what you believe in. It is also the single position that forces you to decide to acknowledge your own inherent bias from culture, family, age, and language. Husbands, Managers, people who consider themselves leaders of a group even if you don't have the official title, you are being watched. Act like it.
We are fatigued and grieved to see people not walking in the authority and integrity a high-demand leadership job demands! If you truly hoped to lead people into success and realization of their authority, you really ought to check yourself on your selfishness. Too scared to see the vision that God has for your life? Grow up! You're not going to be fed milk forever, and if you are you will only have one flavor. If you haven't outgrown your pastor, you really need to prioritize growing and learning. You need to make being the best leader you can be your mission. In fact, the reason you are sinning and failing is that you haven't even bothered trying to experience what walking by the spirit means. If you've never experienced the rod of a loving father on your back, I pray that you will. That you would be led into the discipline of the life of Jesus, and that you would DARE to ask Him the same thing that James and John did. I pray that like them, you would be willing to be baptized in the way He was baptized and to drink from the same cup He did. Pray a dangerous prayer. Give up your life to Him. Abandon everything. Everything else is rubbish in comparison to knowing Him and His sufferings intimately.