Avoiding those who would lure you back to sin

Avoiding those who would lure you back to sin

S- 2Peter 2

They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. 19 They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. 20 And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. 21 It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. 22 They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.] And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”

O-  Peter is speaking here of false prophets or people who will act like your friends , even act like Christians and then lead you away from God's ways.   Peter is telling us that as believers we have received great joy through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior ,  but that we are susceptible to being led a stray and therefore ought to be on guard for those that would lead us away froom our new found life in Christ.

A - The application for me is not to avoid sinful people,  God still wants to reach them and show them His love and mercy,  but in living in the world not to join those in their sin and wandering away from God's ways.   It a fair warning because we all like to be liked and when integrating into a new community like I am now,  I must be careful in my joining into a shipyard or navy culture where sin at some level is acceptable.  In the recent past I think this was more of an internal battle with powers and principalities in the spiritual real challenging me to give up my new way of living and go back to the old.  I perserverved and endured through that season but not with out scars and exhaustion.  Peters warning to me today is to avoid it all together.

P - Dear heavenly Father, thank you for today's lesson, may it be sealed to my heart.   I pray Lord that you would help me to see what you see in people and circumstances,  to avoid the sin, and love the sinner,  help guard my heart and mind from any tempation to go back to my old ways.  In Jesus Christ I pray,  Amen.