God has a people on earth that He is making His own forever and ever,
whose hope is in the grace of God. These move farther and farther away
from the temperament of this socially conflicted, confused, spiritually
impoverished, and tragically paradoxical world. These are not to be anxious
about materialism, knowing that God will meet all their needs. These will be
given a divine calling. They will move with tender humility and quiet patience.
They will be faithful to guard the sweet harmony of the Holy Spirit. All
immaturity will end! These will not be easily shaken by trouble, nor led astray
by novel teachings, or by the false doctrines of deceivers. They will remain
strong and always sincere in their love to acknowledge and express the truth.
Unlike the world, God’s sojourning elect will not let the passion of their
feelings lead them to sin! They will have no anger controlling them or to be
fuel for revenge, not for even a moment. They will not give the slanderous
accuser any opportunity to manipulate them! Ugly or hateful words will never
come from their mouths. Instead, their words will be as beautiful gifts that
encourage others; this done, by speaking words of grace to help them. The
Holy Spirit of God has sealed us in Jesus Christ until we experience our full
salvation. We will never grieve the Spirit of God or take for granted his holy
influence in our life. Laid aside will be bitter words, temper tantrums,
revenge, profanity, and insults. God has graciously forgiven us, and we will
graciously forgive others in the depths of Christ’s love. God’s true people
must abandon feelings, and seek God’s comfort to sacrifice, allowing
reactions to rule their decisions.
Psalms 142:1-5
Proverbs 4:23
Feelings are self-contained expressions that live on selfish desires and
selfish will, that cannot obey God, nor does it want to. Feelings can be long
lasting. It is, however, about denying self. It is attempting to save yourself in
your own strength. Feelings don’t trust God. Feelings respond to thoughts
that lack confidence in reasoning. Thoughts are mental processes. Our
brains associate one bit of information with another and create frameworks
such as beliefs, perspectives, opinions, judgments, and ideas. A feeling is an
automatic and temporary reaction to a stressor in a part of the brain not
connected to thinking and reasoning. Thoughts trigger our conscious
processing of an emotion, where we assign the emotion meaning. God’s
people will have manifested emotion for discerning judgment toward the
mindfulness of purpose.
The world will walk in their empty delusions. Their corrupted logic has been
clouded because their hearts are far from God. Their blinded understanding
and deep-seated moral darkness keeps them from the true knowledge of God.
Christ was only here for a little while. Our time together in these final days
will be very different from what they used to be. We will have to follow Christ
all the way home, or we will be lost. Every day is as we are in a different world.
Greetings, hanging out with friends, dining out, and shopping are not safe
and don’t work any longer in this world anymore. The world we knew, seems
to suddenly have turned into a strange place in which invisible danger lurks
everywhere. So, we feel that we are standing in a strange wilderness. Earth
is not our home. God is using this situation to illuminate ignored or forgotten
truths. No matter how much you think you have achieved in this world, and
no matter how familiar you’ve become with it, if Christ is working in your life
the days here are but a shadow. We own no property in this world. We have
had certain things lent to us for use while we are here, and we have to give
an account of how we use them. And what of our character. It is not to be as
that of worldlings. We are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, by the word of God. No longer a mere natural man, for we have
a higher and spiritual nature imparted to us. Our ways and manners and
customs are not as those of the people of the world who have their portion
in this life. Our speech is to have a peculiar sound. Expect to be treated as
though you do not belong here. Our motives will be misconstrued, and our
words wrested and twisted as we are slandered and abused.
For certain, we have various interests and occupations here, and we seek to
be a blessing in the land where we are, but our hearts are with Christ in
heaven and we can never be fully satisfied until we are there. We are here
in our mortal spirits with hearts full of anticipation of the time when we shall
be at home with the Lord, and find in Him, all that our capacious souls can
desire. We are very cautious where we go. That arch-rogue, the devil,
petitions to plot against us every day, and all his legions are constantly
seeking to rob us of our sacredness or of our peace of mind or in some way
or another to lead us astray. We are in enemy country. We must keep our
sword unsheathed, ever have ready for use that two-edged “sword of the
Spirit which is the word of God,” and hold as with a death-grip the great
“shield of faith. What is said to one of us, is said to all of us…watch. We
should always have our graces in active exercise. If we do not, we will bitterly
regret the folly and sin that besets us. We will find that we have no
sufficiencies here of material worth. Our adequacies must be our spiritual
dependency upon God for everything. In this waste howling wilderness, our
bread must drop from heaven day by day. Thank God, there is a short
duration to our sojourn here. Though the days of our pilgrimage should
be seventy, or eighty, or even ninety years, how swiftly they come to an end.
There will be some who will enter their chambers sooner because God will
have them finish their service earlier. There are those who are here as
strangers to God and there are some who are here as strangers with God.
What is the difference?
Psalms 39:12
Being with God is being under His constant eye and care. We enjoy peculiar
fellowship with God. We walk with God in hallowed and intimate union and
communion. He has told us some of His greatest secrets. He has given us
the high privilege of dwelling in the secret place of the Most High and abiding
under the shadow of the Almighty. In this world that God created, He too is
treated as a stranger. Here is His handiwork all around us, most fair and
beautiful, yet the fool says in his heart, “there is no God,” and proves himself
to be a fool by saying it. Here are signs on every hand of the working of God’s
gracious providence, mysterious but wondrously wise, yet worldlings cannot
see any traces of the finger or mind or heart of God, for He is a stranger to
them. And as God is a stranger here, we need not marvel that we, who are
His children, are also strangers on the earth. He was despised and rejected
of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief—spit upon, scourged,
hounded out from among men, and at last crucified.
I Timothy 3:16
This God, who is a Spirit, manifested Himself in the flesh. This is that
determined change that even the more enhances the honor, the praise, the
glory due God. And look what mystery is given us as sojourners here…our
life is hid with Christ in God. What can there be here for us? Nothing that
need trouble us. God wants us to be so dissatisfied with this world that we
long for a better one. This being the case, we long to get home. But we ought
not to long for home from any work-shy motives. We are to be as good
laborers for God, that we may be worn with carrying His ministry, that we
eagerly look forward to the joy of His Sabbath rest to renew our strength for
service on the morrow. Our rest here for God is to be a rest that shall know
no end…a rest in untiring service.
What a wonder that we who are all sojourning here, too often treat one
another as strangers. There is an essential unity to holy discipline. Quick
ears are so ready to misinterpret and misrepresent words seeking to find one
word awry, dwelling over it. Let us muzzle the mouth, open the heart, and
reason with the mind of Christ, that we may be nearer to going home. Ill words
make texts for sinners, and thus God is blasphemed out of the mouths of His
own beloved children. Let it not be so with any of us, beloved. Weep, if need
be, tears have ever had great prevalence with God. But do not restrain your
grief; find espression in reasoning. Only before the wicked, are we to have
nothing to say, we hold our peace.
If we are God’s chosen people, how should we relate to the world around us,
and, in particular, how should we respond to the world’s animosity and
rejection? In a habitable practice we are truly sojourners and exiles in the
moral and ethical sense. The lives of those who long for heaven are to be
nourished by and are to reflect, the principles and practices of that place to
which they are heading. And there is such a difference between this world
and that place that it is inevitable that each scene should produce a very
different way of life, a difference so fundamental that it ought to be distinctly
visible and impressive to unbelievers. This is one of the reasons why
unbeleivers feel such contempt against God’s people on many occasions.
While here, we must give life a different appearance. It is to show love, purity,
self-denial, kindness, and generosity, humility, courage, honesty, patience,
and integrity. These are the facets of a character dominated by the love of
Christ and a commitment to his kingdom. It is a life of bearing witness in word
and deed, to the love and holiness of that God who has called us out of
darkness into His wonderful light. We have a faith response to the grace of
God. We live now as though already saved. All that we do, should be in the
interest of our Father. Do we think about other people the way we are taught
to think about them here, or the way we are taught to think about them there?
It will make a difference whether our sense of heaven is fitful and weak or
clear and powerful, powerful enough to produce a living expectation to others
who wonder at a life of peace without hate, love without prejudice. Too much
of the time for many who say they are believers, the sense of the heaven is
vague, and so incapable of producing a powerful effect. Task yourself to
ponder what it means to be a sojourner here on earth. Is it truly a conviction
that you have to be in heaven? It is the great honor of Jesus Christ, and it is
the immense privilege of human beings and of sojourners especially, that
such a place exists, and that there is a way to it from this world. How will we
want to have lived and loved here when we are there? We should be daily
feeling our spirit leaving this place.
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