Put Away all Malice and Deceit

[Christsfreeservant]

“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” (1 Peter 2:1-3 ESV)​

This is speaking to Christians and to professing Christians, letting us/them know the kinds of lives which we are to be living as followers of Christ, which has to do with putting certain things out of our lives and putting on the things of God and of his righteousness and holiness, by the grace of God, and in the power of God. Therefore, we are to be obedient to our Lord in all things, in practice, and we are to be holy in all our conduct, and we are no longer to be conformed to the passions of the flesh (see 1 Peter 1:1-25).

And here we are being taught that we must put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. None of these should be part of the Christian life and practice. But sadly there are Christians, many of whom give lip service only to the Lord, who are not of genuine faith in Jesus Christ, who are still deceitful, in practice, and who profess one thing but live another, and so they are hypocrites and liars. And so they also have malice and envy in their hearts against those who are walking in the ways of God.

On the outside they may appear as all is well while they secretly sin against other humans, while they slander them in secret, while they deceive them (or attempt to deceive them) with their lies, and while they put on a show of righteousness and of love and compassion while what is truly in their hearts is pride, hate, envy, malice, unforgiveness, bitterness, and resentment. For they are like Cain who hated his brother because his brother’s deeds were righteous while Cain’s were evil. And so he murdered his brother.

But if we are true followers of Jesus Christ, all these things are to be put out of our lives and cleansed out of our hearts, and our hearts should now be filled with genuine agape love which prefers what God prefers, which is what is holy, righteous, godly, morally pure, honest, faithful, and obedient to our Lord. And now we should long for the pure spiritual milk of God’s word, that by it we may grow up into salvation. For salvation is not guaranteed to those who give lip service only to God, but to those who obey the Lord’s will.

But sadly, many professing Christians are still living for the flesh, and that is the love of their lives. That is what they long for and desire and embrace. That is what they dream about and miss when they are not giving into it. They long for the desires of the flesh and the pride of life and what is worldly and fleshly and sensual and hidden and secretive. That is what they are drawn to and get satisfaction from. And so they end up rejecting all that is godly, upright, morally pure, honest, and faithful, so as to feed their flesh.

And so the message that they are giving to God (and to their spouses) is “get lost,” basically. It is a message of disdain, disrespect, dishonor, hatred, devaluing, and rejection. For they want the flesh more than they want a relationship with Jesus Christ and more than they want a marriage to their spouses. Their “other lover” is themselves and their flesh and the desires of the flesh. And in order to keep that flame going with their “other lover,” they willingly sacrifice both a possible relationship with God and with spouse.

So, because of what is stored up in their hearts, which they will not bring to the cross of Christ to put to death, then they are those who keep going back to the same sinful practices over again. Even if they are able to manage a time period where they did not fall into any particular signature sins, due to behavioral modification, if the heart does not change, eventually they fall right back into the same old traps. And that is because all these things come from what is stored up in the human heart (Luke 6:45; Matthew 15:17-20).

So this is letting all who profess faith in Jesus Christ know that true faith, resulting in genuine salvation from sin, requires that we put sin to death, by the Spirit, and that we now walk in holiness and in righteousness and in obedience to our Lord and to his commandments under the New Covenant, in the power of God. For if sin is what we practice, and not obedience, and not righteousness, and not love for God and for our fellow humans, then we are not in fellowship with God and we will not inherit eternal life with him.

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-24; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-11; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 10:23-31; 1 Co 10:1-22; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

On My Knees

By David Mullen / Michael Hunter Ochs / Nicole Mullen

I get on my knees, I get on my knees
There I am before the love that changes me
See I don't know how, but there's power
When I'm on my knees

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