Sojourners

Complimentary Story
   Have you ever been on vacation to another country?  It can be a bit unsettling to hear everyone around you talking in a foreign language that you don’t understand — a foreign language, foreign customs, and foreign surroundings.  There is a certain comfort we have “at home” that we forfeit when we go to foreign lands.

   The Bible tells us that our true home is Heaven. That is where our true citizenship resides (Philippians 3:20). So here on earth, we are really sojourners and exiles; living away from our true homeland. God tells us not to get too comfortable with our earthly home because it is temporary. In our tendency to find comfort, we often find ourselves assimilating into the foreign culture we’ve been placed in. If we adapt to the world’s ways, it’s language, its pleasures, its people, its standards, we will certainly avoid the uncomfortableness of feeling foreign.  But what do we forfeit with that choice?

   “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36 Berean Study Bible).

    “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” 1 Peter 2:11-12 (English Standard Version).

   The New Living Translation of the Bible says that we are “temporary residents” here. These verses are God’s voice; still calling to us today through His Word, to abstain from the desires of our flesh. Our flesh doesn’t want to feel like an outsider; uncomfortable in its own skin. The flesh does whatever it can to make sure it feels at ease. Friends, we must listen to the Word of God as it calls to us to be holy, set apart; in this world, but not of this world (John 17:14-16). We are a chosen race (1Peter 2:9), plucked out of many nations on the earth through our salvation; set apart to be God's possession. Once we were not a people group, but many scattered individuals; but our salvation has united us as God's people (2 Peter 2:10).

   And He has saved us and called us to love the world, but not to live like the world. His Voice still calls today for us to “abstain from the passions of the flesh.” We can embrace this call to holiness fully or we can choose to compromise its call in order to find a more comfortable place of rest during our temporary residency. We can abstain from the world’s call, entertain it, or sustain it.

   We must remember that we are only visitors to this land. Its spirit and its offerings are not ours to partake; they sit at odds with the Holy Spirit and all that God has to offer us today. Satan looks for divided desires, and prowls around to devour the divided heart. At the same time our God calls to us to “abstain!,” it is Satan who commands this present darkness to call out to us with its own call to “sustain!”

   To sustain a passion is to continually feed it and give it life...to keep it alive. Passion grows in this environment. If the enemy fails to capture our attention with the call to “sustain,” he moves on to the more seductive call to “entertain!” This voice from the darkness only asks for an occasional invitation in. It is a seemingly safe occupation to entertain our passions. What can a few brief encounters hurt?

   God breaks Satan’s lies, that call us to “sustain and entertain,” with His own call  — “Abstain!”

   God tells us to abstain from all that wars against our soul. To abstain from every divided desire at odds with His Holy Spirit.

   We must not love that which cannot last.

   We must not feed that which should not grow.

   Love God.  Love one another.  Sustain the life Christ died to give us.  Abstain from even the smallest form of evil.

   1 Peter 2:9 New International Version, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

Chris McMahan, ‘Tea-vangelist’
Tea4Jesus.com
Email: LoveJesusAndTea@gmail.com
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