She needs to stop being a pig!
Various authors

(Be sure to LISTEN to the Audio, as you READ the text below.)

Peter chose two of the most unpleasant pictures in Scripture to describe apostates: "Of them the proverbs are true: 'A dog returns to its vomit,' and, 'A pig that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.'" 2 Peter 2:22

Consider what the dog is returning to. He was sick of it and vomited it out, and then he went back to it! Nobody dragged him there. He went because he wanted to.

Now look at the pig. She has been washed, and the washing was real. The dirt is gone and her coat is clean. A bath is done to the surface of the pig, but the real problem is her nature. So she gladly trots straight back to the mud.

That is why Peter's warning is so sobering. A man can be washed by a reformation of habits, a church routine, a season of religious feeling, or a fresh start--and still love the mud. A man can even be sickened by his sin, experience the bitterness of it, and put it away for a time--only to return, because the appetite was never removed.

Washing changes how a pig looks. It cannot change what a pig desires.
A pig needs more than a bath. She needs to stop being a pig!

Nothing in the dog or the pig can be fixed by mere instruction. You cannot lecture a dog into hating vomit, or shame a pig into preferring cleanliness. They cannot act contrary to their natures.

So what does a dog need? Not a better diet plan, or a firmer resolution. He needs to stop being a dog!

This is the tragedy that Peter has in view: People who have been cleaned up on the outside, without being made new creatures in Christ. They have felt the sting of sin, tasted the bitterness of it, and even walked away from it for a season. Then the old hunger for sin returns, and they follow it--for their nature was never changed.

This is why God does not promise a cleaner version of the old heart, but a replacement of it: "I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26

God does not coax the dog to dislike vomit. He gives him a new nature, and the dog's new nature now turns from the vomit which it once loved.

God does not train the pig to love cleanliness. He makes a new creature whose desires run in a different direction.

Ask yourself today: Is my Christianity merely an external washing, or a new birth?
Am I merely cleaner, or do I actually desire Jesus?
Do I love holiness, or only fear the consequences of the mud?

Lord, I do not only need a wash. Grant me a new nature and a new heart; then give me desires that come from You, and make me love what You love. Amen.

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Today's AI evangelistic tract: An Appointment That You Must Keep! (with 10 minute audio)