Who Are You Fighting?

1 Peter 3:11 says – let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. Everybody wants peace. But if you want peace, you have to fight. And you also have to surrender. And everyone actually is fighting. And everyone actually is surrendering.

Now, what exactly do I mean?

Well, you see, seeking God’s peace involves turning away from evil. If you’re going to pursue God’s peace, it means that you do good by fighting against your sin, and giving up your war against God. You give up your fight with God, and take up your fight against sin.

Everybody is at war, with God, or with sin. Everybody is surrendering, to their sin, or to God. Of course, a lot of people don’t think they are at war with God. They have just surrendered to themselves, and their sin. But even when you’ve just given up, you are passively fighting, rebelling against God.

You’ll either surrender to God, or surrender to your sin. Surrendering to your sin, to yourself, means that you’re still at war with God. This is the truth. You are either fighting against sin, or you are fighting against God. 

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yelling at the Mirror

There is a lot of darkness in the world. You don’t have to look very hard to see it. Darkness is all around us. The breakdown of society. Political power struggles. Tribalism. Cancel you and cancel me. Everyone is an enemy to someone else. Bad isn’t hard to find. Good is what takes a little looking for. And even when you find it, what you call good someone else calls bad.

Even people with the same standards, people with a fixed standard, can run into this problem. I am talking about Bible believing Christians. They might point in the same direction, to Jesus Christ, as the only real and ultimate answer. But they might still point their finger at people, and judge their motives, judge their actions, judge their souls.

It's easy to point into the darkness and scream against it. It is easy to believe that you’re the one with the light. But a light held by a monster only reveals more trouble. Why would anyone follow someone that they think will hurt them? If we come off like a monster, we are failing in our mission. We might even have the right light. But all people can see is our wrong hearts.

One night I was in my bedroom, all furious about all the wickedness people were calling good. Evil people acting as if some evil thing was actually right and good morals. It went directly against God, and the evil people actually knew this, and openly mocked God’s word. I had enough. I was yelling and screaming in the dark, shaking my fist, and pointing my finger in anger. 

Then, as I walked into my bathroom, I accidentally bumped the light switch. Suddenly, and I found myself yelling and screaming and pointing my finger at myself, in the mirror. And as the light came on in the bathroom, it also came on in my mind and heart. I had a lot of heat, but not enough light. I thought I had the light, but I was miserable. And if you don’t see your misery, you’ll never cry out for mercy. You’ll just keep yelling at the mirror.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

The Olive Branch

Sometimes people take your olive branch and turn it into a club. 

But God isn’t that way.  

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©