Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time it is you're listening to the morning

mindset.

I welcome you and I thank you for taking the time to get yourself ready for the day ahead.

The next 24 hours or the next period of time between when you wake and when you sleep

is your responsibility to live in a way that reflects the faith that you have in Jesus Christ.

Scripture makes it very clear.

In fact, First Peter that we've been studying makes that very clear.

We are right in the middle of chapter 2, verse number 11, and that's the first that we read yesterday,

but there's so much here in this verse. I want to read it again and talk about another aspect of what Peter highlights.

The verse says, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exile to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evil doers they may see your good deeds and

glorify God on the day of visitation.

Yesterday I spoke about the way in which Peter describes you and me as aliens

strangers here in this world and he says that we are too because of that reason

abstain from the passions of the flesh.

Now it might be good for us to define that for a moment, the passions of the flesh.

That phrase brings to my mind almost immediately the kinds of urges we feel that may be emotionally

laced and may not be.

They are just the things we do by compulsion.

And because he says of the flesh,

it's clear he's talking about sinful inclinations that we as believers in Christ are to abstain

from. Of course we can only do that through the power of the Holy Spirit. But Peter's point is living in a way

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