1 Peter 3:11-12 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Peter here
urged us, as followers and believers in Christ Jesus, "to abstain from
sinful desires," and the best way to do that is to live the way he calls
on us to live in that same verse, "as foreigners and exiles." As
saved believers, we understand that this world is not our home, and we do have
a family (we are the Children of God) and citizenship in heaven.
These fleshly
battles will always war against our souls and being a Christian means that we
will still have to fight against the lust of the flesh. The fleshly desire can
not only destroy our spiritual beings but our physical bodies as well. If you
would like to see first-hand an example of this, ask an alcoholic that is
slowly and painfully dying of liver disease. Ask the sexually immoral person
that is dying of AIDS or some other sexually transmitted disease. Ask the
lifelong smoker that is suffering and dying from lung cancer or other
tobacco-related illness. Sometimes people may be able to escape these physical
diseases; however, the inter persons illness and death is a penalty that none
that are given over to the flesh will be able to escape.
Peter is
telling us that even though the "pagans" might accuse Christians of
evil-doing, we should live our lives so that the lost of the world can see the
reflection of the light of Christ Jesus. In the beginning days of Christianity,
Christians were being accused of many things. They were accused of
cannibalistic actions because People falsely believed that Christians consumed
human flesh and drank human blood at communion. Since they were not involved in
worshiping idols, people were accusing them of being atheists.
Today the lies
told of Christians by the "pagans" might be dissimilar to the lies at
the beginning of the Christian movement, but there are still lies abounding about
Christianity. As followers and disciples of Christ Jesus, it is our
responsibility to live a life that would show Christ Jesus's love to the world.
"The day that he visits." It is most likely a reference to the
ultimate meeting of God that all people will have to face. That could be when
people go to meet God or when He comes to meet people. The idea here is that
through the example of the lives of the Children of God, lost people might want
to go to Christ Jesus, accept Him as their Lord and Savior and surrender their
lives to Him. Thus, when they meet God, they would be able to "glorify
God" instead of cowering before His judgment.
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