1 Peter 2:11-12

1 Peter 2:11-12

Beloved ones, I appeal to you as foreigners and temporary residents to abstain from the fleshly desires that engage in warfare against the soul.  While having good conduct among the nations, in order that in whatever they speak against you as workers of evil while making observations out of good works they should glorify God in the day of coming.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Peter is living with an eternal perspective.  How do we know this?  Peter reminds his audience that they are foreigners and temporary residents.  It often feels funny to think that we will live in this world for several decades yet we are still temporary residents in a world that is not our home.  Even typing hat sentence gives me a strange feel.  All I’ve ever experienced is this world, but I do not consider it my home.  I long for a world free of sin, free of bitterness, free of self-centeredness, and free of all that which takes us away from God and His ways.  That is why I am a foreigner and an alien in this world.  In looking towards the life to come in hope, I do not consider this world to be my home.

Where is your home?  What does it look like for you to be a foreigner and a stranger in this world?

Second Thought:

 There is another reason that we are foreigners in this world: warfare.  Peter tells us that the fleshly desires are at war with our very souls.  It isn’t as though we are simply aliens living in a foreign land and allowed to go about whatever business we are doing.  No, we are at war.  The world is at war with our spirit.  The flesh is constantly pulling us away from God and His ways.  Our flesh wants to be the most important thing in our life.  This is why we feel things like greed, pride, self-indulgence, lust, gluttony, etc.  Those things are not of God.  This is why our flesh is at war with our spirit.  We are foreigners in a strange land fighting a war within our very being.

Where is the war at work in you today?  What are the weapons with which you fight that war?

Third Thought:

Because of this war, it is even more important that we live lives of good standard.  After all, if we profess to be of God but live according to our flesh, what is our testimony?  What does it say about our faith when we claim to love God yet act like the world acts?  What is the impact of such actions on the people around us – even the people of faith around us?  We need to live according to God’s ways so that when we are accused God’s goodness shines through us.  Of course, that doesn’t mean we won’t still be rejected.  Christ was crucified while God’s goodness shone through Him.  We don’t live good lives to prove other people wrong, we live good lives so that no matter what happens we illustrate that God is right.

When people look into your life, what do they see? Can you think of a time when God was on display through you yet you still suffered rejection and accusation?

Passage for Tomorrow: 1 Peter 2:13-17