2 Peter 2:20 NLT “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.”
God keeps leading me back to this part of 2nd Peter, so there must be a reason. It’s interesting how this is worded, for instance the word escape brings to mind (at least for me) someone who is in a dangerous position or situation but has found a way out or fled the danger. If you think about current world events and the evil or wickedness that prevails, then yes, there is definitely a need to escape. While there is no way to physically escape the world except through death, we can escape the fear and anxiety that being surrounded by evil produces. Knowing Christ, having a deeper relationship with the Father produces a peace in us because we know He has already won the war. And no matter what happens we can take to heart Romans 8:38 “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow – not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” When God is with us, when we have truly taken His word into our heart, nothing can separate us from Him. Second Peter the second chapter focuses on the dangers of false teachers and how they will lead us back to sin if we are not careful. Peter may have been cautioning new converts or simply reminding all Christians that it is possible for us to “get tangled up and enslaved by sin”. The lifestyle we see being pushed upon us by the world, is one of going after everything and anything we want. The TV ads telling us we deserve to have it all, the shows and movies that promote sex and violence, world leaders who create fear among not only their people but among the nations, greed, anger, hate, selfish attitudes are all encouraged. All of this instead of love, kindness, compassion, they have lost the fear of God, and they encourage us to place what we want above what God wants. There are millions of bad examples in this world that we could follow, but the only example we should be following, that is worth following, is that of Christ. Peter tells us if we get mixed up in a lifestyle where we are placing our desires above Christ, then we are worse off than before, we are essentially rejecting God. Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. We place ourselves into situations where we know there will be temptation. We think we are strong; we can handle it and when we do that, we are relying on ourselves instead of God, He inspired those who wrote the Bible to warn us for a reason. He even gave us examples of those who did not heed His warnings, let us not make that same mistake. Until next time may God bless you and bring peace to your heart.