This time of year is, for many people, a time for travelling: For some there will be a trip to the seaside. For others it will involve visiting relatives elsewhere in the country. Still others will enjoy camping or a holiday cottage or even a hotel for exploring. For a few people it will mean using a passport to enter another country where they will be, for a time at least, aliens & strangers who are just passing through.
Last Sunday morning as we considered the call to God’s people to be set-apart as Holy, we heard the apostle Peter urge Christians living their lives in our broken world to…
“…live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” (1 Peter 1:18)
What he means is that Christians are to remember that they belong to the glory to come, which is their real home, and not make ourselves too comfortable here, nor copy the normal behaviour of those around us.
In fact just a chapter later he says it again, this time explaining what he has in mind:
“Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.” (1 Peter 2:11)
We may not think of ourselves as just passing through, but unless we do so we will not have the correct perspective on either our lives nor of those living their lives around us.
The Lord Jesus came to save us from the penalty of God’s wrath by the sacrifice of Himself – we should remember that such a cost was not for something small but for glorious eternal life with Him forever.
As we remember whose we are and where we ultimately belong, we can remember to behave like it too!
Spencer Shaw