Winning the War Waged

1 Peter 2:11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.

 When we put our faith in Christ, we become God’s people and citizens of his kingdom. We no longer pledge our allegiance to this world, but to God. As the verse says, we are now “foreigners and exiles” in this world since our citizenship is in heaven. However, we have been raised in this world and are ingrained with the world’s ways of living and thinking. Not only that, but we still physically live in this world and are surrounded by people engrossed in the world’s ways. What a dilemma! We are citizens of one kingdom and have been raised in and still live in another. No wonder we struggle! There is certainly a war waged against our souls.

To win the war that is being waged we must work and rest. Both are important.

We must work to abstain from sinful desires. We need to strive to make choices to live lives fitting our new citizenship, even while we live in the midst of those living by the worldly-kingdom standards.

In the midst of our struggles we must rest. Since we have been raised in and are now living in the worldly kingdom, it is no surprise when we struggle with living as members of God’s kingdom. As we wrestle to live well, and fall short, we must rest in our true citizenship. No matter how we act, as believers in Jesus, we are now members of God’s kingdom. We are his people. That is not based on our success at waging the war well. It is just who we are now.

To win the war waged we must rest in who we are and work to live accordingly.