From Another World
"We are aliens and strangers in this world"- I Peter 2:11-12. We are alien to the ways and practices of this world, and to how the world thinks. In addition, as we are in Christ, we fight the fight to abstain from our sinful desires, as this Scripture says. Even as a Christian, I am feeling alien with other Christians, who indulge their sinful desires, and are thinking like the world, and practicing their ways.
It seems as time goes on, the narrow road has fewer and fewer people on it. Some are trying to take alternate routes. Is this the same thing as when Jesus said some will try to get in the sheepfold by climbing the fence instead of going through the gate, which He is? If we don't press against the world (or our sin nature's desires) we can't really say that we are following Jesus, can we, for His ways are opposite. Many would like to say they are His, but still do what they want to do only.
The broad path leads to destruction, and how dark is that darkness. This means that when one is on it, they don't even know it. Their lives are filled with self-sought pleasure and filling their own lusts, and they don't even think of it as "spiritual adultery" because everything seems to be going well with them, and most everyone else are doing the same things, which normalizes it in a person's mind. In truth, they are serving the god of self, instead of God.
So, if you are following God by denying yourself, or at least desiring to, and trusting God to get you there, (gaining the victory over the flesh) then you will feel like an alien or stranger in this world, even in Christian circles with those who are in the world and participating with everything in it. You will not be understood, and you will feel so different and foreign. Sometimes, you will be tempted to "join them" just to feel accepted and "one of them," but by God's grace, He will keep you, as you trust Him. And know, that in this way, you will are sharing in the "fellowship of His sufferings."
"If God be for me, who can be against me?"-this truth, too, will keep you secure in His holy nation.
It seems as time goes on, the narrow road has fewer and fewer people on it. Some are trying to take alternate routes. Is this the same thing as when Jesus said some will try to get in the sheepfold by climbing the fence instead of going through the gate, which He is? If we don't press against the world (or our sin nature's desires) we can't really say that we are following Jesus, can we, for His ways are opposite. Many would like to say they are His, but still do what they want to do only.
The broad path leads to destruction, and how dark is that darkness. This means that when one is on it, they don't even know it. Their lives are filled with self-sought pleasure and filling their own lusts, and they don't even think of it as "spiritual adultery" because everything seems to be going well with them, and most everyone else are doing the same things, which normalizes it in a person's mind. In truth, they are serving the god of self, instead of God.
So, if you are following God by denying yourself, or at least desiring to, and trusting God to get you there, (gaining the victory over the flesh) then you will feel like an alien or stranger in this world, even in Christian circles with those who are in the world and participating with everything in it. You will not be understood, and you will feel so different and foreign. Sometimes, you will be tempted to "join them" just to feel accepted and "one of them," but by God's grace, He will keep you, as you trust Him. And know, that in this way, you will are sharing in the "fellowship of His sufferings."
"If God be for me, who can be against me?"-this truth, too, will keep you secure in His holy nation.
posted by Patti Blount @ 8:12 AM
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