God’s Word for You

2 Timothy 2:22 flee and pursue

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, June 28, 2026

22 Flee the sinful passions of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

The sinful passions of youth are known well enough. Writing about the Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Luther says, “Youths are tempted chiefly by the flesh; older people are tempted by the world.” And in another place he says, “Young fellows are tempted by girls, men who are thirty years old are tempted by gold, when they are forty years old they are tempted by honor and glory, and those who are sixty years old say to themselves, ‘What a pious man I have become!’” (Table Talk, LW 54:158).

Paul tells his friend at the same time to flee one thing and to pursue another. This is a wise way of giving advice, since the sinful nature never likes being told not to do a thing, or to avoid it, but the new creation does not at all mind being encouraged to pursue a godly deed. And Paul calls up a list of four things:

Righteousness (δικαιοσύνην) as a pursuit is to seek and strive what God demands of us, not in order to earn or win salvation, but to give glory to God and to thank him with our very lives for what he has has done for us through Christ. Righteousness is the doing of what God would have us do; it is the keeping of his law, not only in our actions and words, but even in our hearts and thoughts, which is far more difficult to do and a very strenuous training course to pursue. How can the Christian toughen up his very mind only to think in line with God’s holy will? There is no external training that will be more beneficial than the constant training of study, prayer, and agonizing over the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures. When righteous thoughts become second nature to our thoughts, we have finally stuck a toe over the threshold, but the work is far from over. There will always be setbacks, terrible stumblings and fallings into sins of the mind, so that even a good Chistian coming forward to receive the Lord’s Supper may be led to some straying sinful thought. Should this cause despair? The devil is only holding out his foot like a naughty schoolboy trying to trip the Christian. Let the believer pray, “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7), because his intention was to come and be forgiven, but the devil spat in his eye. Do not the let the devil’s tricks deprive you of what you seek, especially when what you seek is God’s own righteousness.

Faith (πίστιν) as a pursuit is not to achieve faith, for faith is a gift from God (Romans 12:3; Ephesians 2:8). But Paul means the pursuit of the advancement of faith, a deepening faith; a faith that increases by study, worship, struggle, and prayer. Faith means to forsake one’s self and risk everything on the promise of Christ. For if the Lord kept a record of sins, who could stand (Psalm 130:3)? But faith is trust in what God has promised: “With you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope” (Psalm 130:4-5). “This,” our Confession states, “is how God wants to be known and worshiped, that we accept his blessings and receive them because of his mercy rather than because of our own merits. This is the greatest consolation in all afflictions, and our opponents take it away when they despise and disparage faith and teach men to deal with God only by works and merits” (Apology IV:60).

Love (ἀγάπην) as a pursuit is spurred by God’s love. John teaches us clearly that God’s love is the cause of our love. For “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son. Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:10-11,19). With these words, Christ is teaching who those people are who are loved by God: they are those who love him and keep his commandments. But not that it is only then that he begins to love them, but that they themselves (that is, we ourselves) are more and more confirmed in our hearts about God’s fatherly love. The testimony about this is within our hearts. So when Christ says, “We shall come to him and make our dwelling with him” (John 14:23) he isn’t speaking about the essence of forgiveness and justification, but about its consequence; not about the beginning of God’s gifts, but about the increase of those gifts. For when the godly who are justified by faith in Christ love God and obey his commandments out of love, then God comes to them and augments them with greater gifts and more and more of his grace: “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left” (Isaiah 54:2-3). And Jesus also promises: “I shall reveal myself to him” (John 14:21), which means, he will give this gift: He will reveal himself and his will more and more to the one who advances day by day in knowledge and faith.

Peace (εἰρήνην) is also a gift from God (Numbers 6:26; 2 Thessalonians 3:16), but as a pursuit it is what God would have us strive for in the world, and also in our hearts. “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life” (1 Thessalonians 4:11), and “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15). This comes from faith, and we pursue it because we love our Savior. “This offers the greatest consolation to faithful consciences and illumines the glory of Christ, who was surely given to us that through him we might have grace, righteousness and peace.”

At the end of the verse, Paul describes prayer, which is “calling on the Lord from a pure heart.” This isn’t a proof of faith by itself, although a lack of prayer in a person’s life does say something about that person’s relationship to God. Therefore prayer can be called a sign of faith. Christians will have the boldness of faith to approach God (John 16:26-27); Christians will also be in harmony with God through faith in his grace (Daniel 9:18), and Christians are moved to pray by the working of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:15).

Prayer is not just for the sake of cheering up the one who prays. Our prayers genuinely move the heart of God. Our God invites our prayers and answers them, according to his will, but he answers them. But one last thing to remember is that prayer is not a means of grace (the way through which God gives forgiveness and his blessings). In prayer we deal with God. Through the means of grace, God deals with us.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

Browse Devotion Archive