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Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 1 Peter 2:11 ESV
If he were writing today, Peter wouldn’t win a popularity contest with the exhortation of today’s scripture. “What?” many would say. “Go against my feelings? Tell myself no? I can’t do that—this is just who I am!”
Before we lob a morality grenade at the unsaved people around us, note exactly who Peter was addressing: “beloved” fellow Christians. He had just described his readers as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…God’s people” (1 Peter 2:9-10). Clearly, the passions of the flesh affect us as Christians too.
This war for our souls is fierce and ongoing—and even when the battlefield seems quiet, be sure the enemy is preparing another onslaught. Whether your passions run toward sex or alcohol or drugs or overeating or laziness or any of a thousand other temptations, Peter simply says, “Abstain.” And what the Bible tells us to do, we can—with the help of God’s Holy Spirit inside us.
It will be challenging. Every war is. But “the Lord is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3), and He’ll be in the foxhole with you. When you obey His commands, God guarantees your safety and ultimate victory.
Prayer: Lord God, this world is truly a battlefield. Strengthen me to abstain from the passions of my flesh.
If he were writing today, Peter wouldn’t win a popularity contest with the exhortation of today’s scripture. “What?” many would say. “Go against my feelings? Tell myself no? I can’t do that—this is just who I am!”
Before we lob a morality grenade at the unsaved people around us, note exactly who Peter was addressing: “beloved” fellow Christians. He had just described his readers as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…God’s people” (1 Peter 2:9-10). Clearly, the passions of the flesh affect us as Christians too.
This war for our souls is fierce and ongoing—and even when the battlefield seems quiet, be sure the enemy is preparing another onslaught. Whether your passions run toward sex or alcohol or drugs or overeating or laziness or any of a thousand other temptations, Peter simply says, “Abstain.” And what the Bible tells us to do, we can—with the help of God’s Holy Spirit inside us.
It will be challenging. Every war is. But “the Lord is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3), and He’ll be in the foxhole with you. When you obey His commands, God guarantees your safety and ultimate victory.
Prayer: Lord God, this world is truly a battlefield. Strengthen me to abstain from the passions of my flesh.
