“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the gentiles; that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, glorify God in the day of visitation”, 1 Peter 2:11-12I want to do a word study, by taking a look at the original Greek meaning for some of the key words and phrases in this scripture.

First, Dearly beloved is a phrase derived from a Greek word which speaks of God’s love as seen in John 3:16.  You are divinely loved by God. So much so that he sent his only Son to die so that we could be adopted into His Family.  Did you know that you can never disown or disinherit a child that you have adopted?

Beseech is from a Greek word meaning urge, or I beg you.

Stranger refers to a person living along side of someone else.  It speaks of a temporary home.  Pilgrim is the translation of a word literally meaning, to live alongside of the natives in a foreign land.   O.K.  Lets look at this;  Peter is urging us as strangers living in a foreign land,  in a territory that is ruled by Satan, to remember that heaven is our home not this world.  And because heaven is our home we should abstain from fleshly lust which war against our soul.  We are ambassadors of God.  When we are giving in to the strong desires of the flesh, we are not representing the nature of God to the natives of this land.

Abstain literally means “hold yourself back from.”  Did you get that?  Hold yourself back!  No one can do it for you.  God cannot hold you back from, you must make a conscious decision to abstain, to not do.

In today’s society, lust is confined to a meaning of immoral desire.  The Greek word means simply a “strong desire”.  In the context of our scripture reference it refers to a strong desire coming from the evil nature.

War is from a Greek word that means to lead a military expedition, to lead soldiers to war, or Battle, to carry on a campaign.  The evil cravings, fleshly lusts, are carrying on a campaign against you, Christian.  The word against is from a Greek word whose root meaning is down.  We get a picture of these evil cravings hurling themselves down upon our soul in a campaign designed to cause its (the soul) downfall.  The weight of cravings and lust beat you down and before you know it, you are living a defeated life and wondering what happened to you.  War, in the natural, is deadly.  Spiritual war is even deadlier.  Learn to fight an offensive war.  Be on a campaign to deny the enemy the pleasure of overtaking you and beating you down to nothing.  Stop living a defensive life style, only fighting when you are attacked.  Learn, my brothers and sisters, that you will never score points while in the defensive mode.  You can only try to stop the other side from scoring, advancing.  You will never grow and mature while living a defensive life, because you only get in the game when you need to stop the other side from advancing.

To be continued…..

Rosita