Strangers and Pilgrims

 

1 Peter 2:11“ Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.”

“Home” is a great word. Just saying or writing it gives a feeling or comfort and rest. After a long day or a trip away, it always feels good to get back home. But, everyone knows that this world and everything in it is temporary in the cycle of life. As a Christian, we realize also that we will never truly be “Home” until we are with our savior in Heaven. John 1:14, speaking of Jesus says:  “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” I read that the English word “dwelt” has the same root for the Greek word “tent”, a temporary dwelling. Christ literally “pitched His tent” among us. Not knocking our great earthly homes here, but looking at the eternal perspective, we find comfort and rest in our future home. There is an old spiritual hymn that puts it well: “This world is not my home … I’m just a passin’ through.” That’s why the “Good Book” tells us all to have a “light hand” upon the things of this world, because they are temporal and “you can’t take it with you when you go.”

Hebrews 11:16 “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”

Don’t get me wrong, we have some great experiences in this time and place in which the Lord has placed us as pilgrims and sojourners. This is our Father’s world, and this side of heaven, the Lord gives us a glimpse of our heavenly home in many ways. There is a kinship among our fellow man and all of Creation; and within the house of God, with the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, a bond forged from nothing of this world. I read that we may speak different languages, come from different cultures, follow different customs, and otherwise have nothing to tie us together, but we do have the blessed tie that binds – a shared love for God’s Word. We are all citizens of heaven, passing through this world in different geographies but with a profound union that resulted from our common union in Christ … both pilgrims on our way to the heavenly country. God gives us many blessings in this world, including an earthly home, but Jesus has gone to prepare a better eternal home for us in heaven with Him. With that I mind, enjoy the blessings here and now, but remember that the temporary only foreshadows the future, and we need to keep our priorities straight and in order in light of that fact. It’s all blessings as we're just passin' through.

John 14:1-3 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also”.

In Christ, Brian