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Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.

Is today shaping up to look a lot like yesterday? And the day before it? Life sure can settle into a routine, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Routines and habits can be blessings in our lives. But the same familiar rhythms of our daily lives can also lull us into a false sense of security in our spiritual lives. Because we end up doing the same thing most days, we can easily forget that the stakes are very high.

The Bible says that every day is a spiritual battle. Each day, there is a battle in a long spiritual war that we’ll be waging until we leave this earth. This battle is an internal one. The attacks come from our own sinful desires that fight against how God wants us to live our lives. Are you fighting that battle? Or have you quit putting up a fight, maybe without even realizing it? The culture around us wears us down and we may not even know we are often losing the battle, whether it is through the language we choose to use, the things we daydream about, or the actions that have become habits for us.

These daily battles are serious: our souls are the target. The devil is trying to destroy our souls, and he uses our own desires to do it! Because we so often fail to put up a fight, we most definitely should lose the battle and have our souls condemned forever.

Thankfully, we have one in our corner who fights for us. His name is Jesus, and he was born into this world for the specific purpose of going to battle on our behalf. To do so, he lived a perfect life in our place, daily defeating every temptation he faced. Then he gave his life in our place, to die the death that we deserved, even though he was completely innocent of all sin. Finally, he rose from the dead to guarantee our victory. In Jesus, the war has been won!

Dear Jesus, help me to be ready for battle each day with the knowledge that in you I have victory. Help me to fight the good fight of faith. Amen.

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.