Flee Evil Desires

“Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.” (2 Timothy 2:22-23)

If a fire were to break out in the building you’re in right now, what would you do? Flee! You’d run out of the building as fast as you could. If you were hiking in the woods and a bear started chasing you, what would you do? Flee! You’d run away as quickly as possible. When there’s danger, you flee!

That’s what God calls you to do with sin: “Flee the evil desires of youth.” When you recognize a temptation, when you feel your heart being pulled into a sin, flee like you would flee from a fire. Flee like you would flee from a bear. Get away from that temptation as quickly as possible. Flee evil desires!

Joseph did that in the Old Testament. Joseph was a servant in a man named Potiphar’s household. One day, Potiphar’s wife asked Joseph to go to bed with her. Do you know what Joseph did? He fled! In fact, he ran away from that temptation so fast that he left his robe in her hand (see Genesis 39).

Do you do that? Do you flee from sinful desires? Sadly, we often don’t. In fact, we often have a totally different attitude. Instead of fleeing, we see how close we can get to sin. If there’s a line we shouldn’t cross, we sneak up as close to that line as we can get. We think, “How close can I get without sinning?”

Would you do that with a fire? “How long can I stay in this burning building before I have to leave?” That would be incredibly foolish, wouldn’t it? Don’t do that with sin either. Flee evil desires!

Instead, “pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.” What a difference! With God’s strength, pursue a godly life that follows his will. Pursue growing in your faith each day as you hear God’s Word. Pursue a deeper understanding of grace, both God’s grace to you in Jesus and the grace God empowers you to show others. Pursue peace in place of the foolish arguments that we so often get ourselves into. 

Doesn’t that sound so much better? Flee evil desires. Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.

Dear Lord, forgive me for foolishly seeing how close to temptation I can get. Instead, teach me to flee from evil desires and pursue the true righteousness, faith, grace, and peace that come from you. Amen.