But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
2 Timothy 2:20-22
In his final letter to Timothy, Paul instructed his protégé in the things that would make him productive and fruitful in the work of God. Among the warnings Paul gave was a caution against allowing temptation to linger—it was to be fled, like Joseph running out of Potiphar’s house and leaving his coat behind.
But fleeing temptation alone is not enough. In addition, we must pursue what is right. If we only focus on avoiding what is wrong, we will not be drawn away from it. Instead we must focus on reaching for what is right and allowing that to become the driving motivation for our choices and actions.
In his book The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, Scottish pastor Thomas Chalmers wrote these words:
There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to displace from the human heart its love for the world—either by a demonstration of the world’s vanity, so that the heart shall be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment, so that the heart shall be prevailed upon not to resign an old affection, which shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection for a new one. From the constitution of our nature, the former method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual, and the latter method will alone suffice for the rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that domineers over it.
