War

As a society, we're pretty averse to war, and I guess that's a good thing - we do, after all, follow the Prince of Peace. But I wonder sometimes if we just don't want the sacrifice and hard work that is necessary to fight. I have thought frequently over the past decade that we don't have enough willpower and discipline to sustain a war.

I thought that again this morning, when I read this from 1 Peter 2:11-12: "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which 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."

Usually this verse makes me think about being alien, but this morning the word "war" leaped out at me. War is more than just a fight, it's a sustained, focused effort that will involve multiple battles, with a lot of preparation and resources put into them. War is serious business, and defending yourself in time of war takes as much diligence and sacrifice as attacking.

In this case, I need diligence against sinful desires, because through them Satan makes war on my soul. I think the business about being aliens is just to remind me that what seems good in this world isn't good for me, because I don't really belong here.

I like to live as though I were a native, though. I want to belong here; truth is, I'm not in any hurry to get back home.

Maybe that's why it's easy to be casual about sin. Sometimes it doesn't seem like a big deal if I do it once; it seems likely there will be many days between now and Judgment Day, a lot of chances to get it right. And sometimes it seems like such a minor sin: one bad word, or one little tidbit of gossip, or one gluttonous meal, or one extra drink. I don't often think of sin as mortal danger.

But it is. I'm in a war, and if I don't want to lose I have to stay safe inside the defenses. Because that's what sin does: it lures me outside the wire, where I'm vulnerable. God is a mighty fortress, one Satan can't come close to threatening. His only viable strategy is deceit. If he can get me to think it's safe out there, and lure me away from God, he knows I'll be easy meat.

Peter's strategy is the opposite. He says I should live such a good life (which means completely resisting sin's temptation) that the pagans, the ones Satan thinks he already owns, can see what a great God I have. If I do this, I'll win some of them over, a victory for God and a defeat for the devil.