1 PETER 1:14
"So you must live as God's OBEDIENT CHILDREN. Do not slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You did not know any better before."
When we come to the Lord and ask Him to dwell with us, we become a new person. All the old things have passed away and all things are new in our spirit. In the past we may have been involved in habitual sinning. An example would be drunkenness or adultery. Now we know better than before we came to be a believer. We find we can not commit the same sins and they fall from us one by one. The Lord has freed us from our bonds and captivity and it is no longer possible to be the same old nature that preceded our opening the door to our hearts. Our desire is to be obedient and a loved child of God. Now we know better than we did before!
As a child of God it is important to be one that the Lord approves of and continues to love. The way the Lord will know about our faith and righteousness is our behavior. If we were to slip back into our old ways of living and return to our habitual sinning, then God would know that we have wandered from His path. Just as any child must be obedient to their parents if they hope to do well in this life, we must be obedient to the Lord's will if we hope to obtain eternal life with our heavenly Father. The most important point to remember is that we now know better as a believer than as a slave to sin. We did not know better before coming to the Lord, we do now!
The impulse to satisfy our own desires may be strong, as it had been in the past, but we know better than to live for ourselves. We have become the children of God and we must now do His will. It is not our desires that control our lives but it is the Lord's desires that we must conform to. We must not slip back to the old nature or the old man, that is like a dog returning to its own vomit and it displeases God and means our separation from His will. You have no excuse in that you know better because you know God. Your job now is to be an OBEDIENT CHILD. If you have wandered, now is the time to get back on the right path and turn again to God and walk in His path.
