Grave Clothes

Strangers in this world

11 Dear friends, you are like visitors and strangers in this world. So I beg you to keep your lives free from the evil things you want to do, those desires that fight against your true selves. 12 People who don't believe are living all around you. They may say that you are doing wrong. So live such good lives that they will see the good you do, and they will give glory to God on the day he comes. – 1 Peter 2:11-12 (ERV)

I have had the rare privilege of living in two different countries. I understand what it means to be a stranger and the difficulties that it comes with it. First, you are a stranger in every single way. And being in that position means, you are most likely not so familiar with how things are done in the area you find yourself.

I have gotten a better understanding of how to navigate my way through my current city, but I must say, it had been so challenging and still is to a certain degree. I can understand why people don't like being strangers. It's weird. And a lot of times, you deal with misconceptions about yourself. And because of wanting to fit in, we end up doing wrong things.

Like visitors in the world

We are visitors in this world. We need to be conscious of who we are in God and start to see why God doesn't want us living like the rest of the world does. Usually there's a lot of temptation and hard as it might be, God gives us the strength to overcome.

When I finally got saved, I struggled with functioning in my new life. Which is normal. We all need time to grow in God. I gave my life to Christ in my late teenage years. I was 17 years old at the time. And if you have been a teenager before, you know how hard it is to let go of friends and the pressures that come with being a kid. I struggled with my friends.

I was a very terrible kid and so, most people didn't believe I was saved. And each time I tried to live for God, the more persecution I received from those around me. Jesus Christ should be our source of encouragement. Even He was a stranger on the earth. And you know what? He chose to become man.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us – John 1:14 (NKJ)

If Jesus had only been God, it would have been so difficult to follow Him. Jesus became human for you and I. And as a human, He defeated the enemy. The goal should be to discover what kind of person Jesus was? And we know that He was a man who valued His relationship with God His Father and that has everything to do with why He overcame in all situations.

Being a believer is really all about knowing God the father. And that's why we are visitors in this world. You might ask, why live like a visitor if God put us on the earth?

Keep your lives free from the evil

The idea of being a stranger is really to do with how we live on Earth. God wants us to stay away from everything that can stain our lives.

27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. – James 1:27 (NIV)

God's entire idea is to get us to a place where we are no longer influenced by the world. The truth is, if we are not following God, we are following something else. And there are so many things that can influence us on earth. Our idea of what it means to live is an idea we heard from somewhere or something we saw.

Before I was saved, I acted like the people I followed. I used to listen to ungodly music. And those rappers talked about partying in clubs and having so many girls and doing drugs and all sorts of things. And you know what? That's exactly what I did.

As believers we need to be bold about our beliefs. Many people stand for wrongs things and seem to have very strong convictions about whatever they believe in. What about the believer? What are your convictions about God? Who is God to you? We all need a personal relationship with God. In that personal relationship, there's growth and maturity in Christ.