This is WAR
1 Peter 2:11
11 Beloved, I urge you as foreigners and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul.
Sadly, I didn’t have time to cover verses 11–12 in detail on Sunday morning, but these verses are critically important to the identity and mission Peter gave us in verses 1–10.
As we’ll see today with verse 11 and tomorrow with verse 12, these are two of the fastest ways to completely mess up this mission—to the point that it can take months or years to recover from the damage done.
First, we must remember that we are foreigners and strangers in these lands.
Our home is not a country, a state, or a city, but the Kingdom of God in Heaven and, eventually, in the New Earth.
How do you act when you are visiting or even living in a foreign place?
There is a level of humility and carefulness with which you conduct yourself that you don’t have in your homeland. How much more careful are you not to break a law if you’re visiting a place where you aren’t a permanent resident?
I’m not saying we live our earthly lives full of fear and worry.
What I am saying is that we need to remember this is not our home.
This world does not have the same worldview as we do, and this world’s worldview is not equally valuable to that of Scripture. This world does not have our best interests at heart, and more importantly, it does not have our Lord’s interests at heart.
With all of that in mind, the first specific thing we must be wary of is the lusts of our flesh.
This may be literal lust in terms of sexual immorality, or it could be overconsumption of alcohol or food, an addiction to gambling, or immense pride.
All of these things are the “lusts” of the flesh in the sense that we are drawn toward improper pursuits—either in terms of type, such as sex outside of marriage or pornography, or in quantity, such as the overuse of alcohol or food.
And again, look at why Peter says these things are dangerous. We touched on this briefly on Monday.
These sins often have real, painful, agonizing consequences in our earthly lives—the alcoholic doing permanent damage to their liver and health, or the person given to lust losing family and friends.
But that is not what Peter points to first.
They wage WAR against the soul.
Friends, we must treat these sins with the severity they are due.
This is not merely a struggle or a “bad” thing.
We are in a war against our sinful flesh.
Either we win by the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, or we will, at the VERY least, suffer greatly spiritually and often physically—and we will cause pain to those we love.
The challenge, however, is not immediate perfection after reading this devotional.
The challenge is to FIGHT with everything you have, with the strength that the Holy Spirit works within you.
If you need help starting or continuing that fight, whatever lust of the flesh you are battling, please reach out.
Reply to this email, and I (Cooper) would be overjoyed to meet with you and at least have a conversation. I know I can speak for Jordan and Micaiah when I say they would happily do the same.
You can reach them at the contact information below.
Jordan — jordan@fcbfb.org
Micaiah — micaiah@fbcfb.org
