WE ARE FOREIGNERS

1 Peter 1:17 (TNIV) “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.”

REVERENCE (def): respectful, awed, solemn, loving, humble, adoring, devout, submissive.*

FEAR (def): Extreme reverence or awe, as toward a supreme power.*

“This world is not my home I'm just passing through

my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door

and I can't feel at home in this world anymore …”**

Life is a funny thing. It can seem that we are here today and gone tomorrow. Life is a fleeting thing. The saying “Time waits for no man” is literally true. There is but One who can control and alter time and that is Almighty God. We are called to live out our lives on this earth with a solemn and respectful reverence or awe for our God. We are not to take Him or His commands lightly. He is the One Who can change all things with one spoken word. God is the One who parted the Red Sea in Moses’ day. He is the One and only Jehovah God, the One Who was and is and is to come; the One who is to be revered over any other.

We are given a certain allotted amount of time on this earth. God ordains it and knows when we took our first breath and when we will take our last. He is completely impartial. He does not favor any one person over another. He never has and never will. He looks at His entire creation the same and loves us all equally, in spite of ourselves. We are to consider ourselves as foreigners in a foreign land as we live out our lives here in the present. It is difficult to do this, what with all the responsibilities we take on throughout our lives. Some are quite necessary, some only necessary in our own minds. We would much rather enjoy this life than live a life of servitude to our Lord. We don’t understand that which the Lord has equipped us for. We strive for the wrong things in life and leave God out of some of the most important decisions we make. We do NOT need to be “so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good” as the saying goes, but we DO need to be conscious of His presence in our everyday lives and seek His direction and guidance. You see we think we know what we are doing from day to day, but we are wrong. Our thinking is askew; it is off the mark.

It is my contention that what God is wanting from us as followers of Christ beside praise and worship, is a striving. I believe that God desires for us to seek to be more like His Son each and every day. That requires us to stop “living like there is no tomorrow”, but rather live like tomorrow was your last day on earth. The former refers to the following: “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”; the latter takes on a much more somber tone. If you knew tomorrow would be your last day on this earth, what would you do?

Living like you truly don’t belong here makes you different. People many times like to blend in, be a part of the crowd. God wants you to be set apart. He desires for you to be a lighthouse in the raging seas of life. He desires for you to put your own personal desires aside and BE Christ to someone. He will provide for and sustain you; He always has, even if you haven’t realized it. Give your life fully to Him and watch things change all around you. But you must look through the eyes of the Spirit. Listen and learn from the Holy Spirit and you will see things and experience that which you never could have dreamed.

WALK WITH THE KING TODAY AND BE A BLESSING!!

* Courtesy of www.thefreedictionary.com
** Gospel song written by SD Burton; Music by EB Graham