Pilgrims

We are pilgrims in this world: only travelers on our way to our eternal home.

Genesis 47:9 - And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

We, who are in Christ, are now no longer aliens or strangers of Christ, but aliens and strangers to the world.

Ephesians 2:12, 19 - That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

Verse 19 - Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

We who serve Christ look forward to a place not of this world, and we continue on in faith until the end.

Hebrews 11:13 - These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. We also must do this in order to obtain the promise. We must no longer hold onto the things of this world as though they are what really matter, but we must hold onto that which is of Christ at all times because it is for our very life. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17) if that is true, then this also must be true for us and we must hold on to the treasure of the word of our Lord as the most valuable treasure we own.

Psalm 119:54 - Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.

1 Chronicles 29:14-15 - But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.

Peter instructs us: 2 Peter 2:11-12 - Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Anybody who has begun to walk with Christ, will know that this new life is not anything like the one they lived before. It is not a life in which one can choose to do that which is right in their own eyes – this would be living falsely (or living a lie). Be honest, if you say you are of Christ, then live the way Christ has called us to live.

The desire of the LORD is this, as the apostle John said in 3rd John chapter 1 verse 4, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.”

May God bless you all as we learn what it is to worship the LORD in Spirit and in Truth.

Amen and amen.