Foreigners And Nomads

Hebrews 11:13-16

All these people died still believing what God had promised them. . . . They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. (Hebrews 11:13)

FOR THE FIRST THREE HUNDRED YEARS of Christian history, followers of Jesus were keenly aware of their alien status in this world. Our spiritual forebears lived in often-hostile territory among people who ignored or dismissed them and sometimes actively persecuted them. As believers in Jesus, they were no longer strangers and foreigners to God and his promises (Ephesians 2:19), but they were strangers and foreigners to the world and its ways. The citizens of heaven lived as exiles on earth.

That’s not a new twist in the history of God’s people. Exile is one of the first scenes in our story—fallen humanity driven out of Eden. The story line of redemption is a cycle of exiles and remnants: captives in Egypt and Babylon, wanderers looking for a place to live, returnees trying to rebuild the broken walls of their existence, hearts longing for their true home. Even today, we are told we are in the world but not of it—an ever-expanding righteous remnant growing into a vast, eternal Kingdom. As citizens of heaven living in occupied territory, we know that our story is not at its end.

That means we are living in two extremely important processes: (1) growing into the environment of heaven and learning God’s ways; and (2) learning how to relate to and influence the world we live in. The two complement each other, but there is also tension between them. Will our spiritual growth separate us from our culture or engage it? Are we being sent into the world or delivered from it? Are we, as the saying goes, becoming so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good? Or, as it really should be, are we seeking heaven-mindedness in order to benefit those around us? These are questions foreigners and nomads have to ask. We have been loved, chosen, and called—and everything in our lives should be pointed toward demonstrating why.

{Father, teach me how to relate to your world and mine. Help me fulfill my calling. As long as I am a stranger in this world, make me an ambassador of your Kingdom. Amen.