Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
What is most important to me is where my heart is. If the thing important to me is what I strongly desire in my heart then that is my treasure. When I have my treasure I am excited and stirred because of the effect the treasure has on me.
2 Peter 2:19 says,
NKJV, “…for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.”
NLT, “They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves to sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you.”
Overcome in the Greek is hēttaomai. It means,
- to make less, inferior, to overcome
- to be made inferior
- to overcome, worsted, to be conquered by one, forced to yield to one
- to hold a thing inferior, set below
We were and are purposed before time existed to be servants of righteousness and love to God and Christ by grace. To be his free-willed bond servant. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. We are purposed to be servants of righteousness by His will in us which is our will in Him by revelation of Christ.
If I am a slave to self to my self-imposed will which is rooted in fear because perfect love casts out fear, then the fear of judgment of my self-imposed will is the conqueror in my life. I am inferior to it. I am forced to yield to it by fear and the yoke of bondage.
2 Peter 2:1 speaks of the word heresy. In the Greek, it means “a choosing, choice” (from haireomai, “to choose”); then, “that which is chosen,” and hence, “an opinion,” especially a self-willed opinion, which is substituted for submission to the power of truth, and leads to division and the formation of sects.”
This heresy or ‘self-willed opinion’ is based on false teaching that Peter is addressing in 2 Peter 2. Paul calls it, ‘another gospel.’
What is the way out?
2 Peter 2:20, “…they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,”
Col. 3:3, “…your life is hid with Christ in God.”
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