"Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul." 2 Peter 2:11
I'm an alien. If you are a born again Christian, so are you in a sense. We are strangers to this world. Other translations call us pilgrims, foreigners, or exiles. The point is as a Christian living here on earth, we are living in our temporary home. Our permanent home in eternity will be heaven, praise God! The passage goes on to describe that those of us who are God's children should look different. We should look like aliens or foreigners compared to the world around us. Our lives should reflect Christ--which should obviously stand out amongst unbelievers.
For me, this is very convicting and very, very hard to balance. I think as Christians we tend to fall into one of three categories:
1. A Christian who is SO "foreign" that she isolates herself from everyone and everything, becoming legalistic, and so far removed from unbelievers she can't speak their language and reach them for Christ.
2. A Christian who is no longer learning the foreign language, but has compromised all the standards God has given her as a believer that when you look at her you can't tell the difference between her and an unbeliever. She walks, talks, thinks, and acts the same as one who has not met Jesus.
3. A Christian who has become bilingual. She maintains her foundation in God's word and truth, but through the Holy Spirit can obediently reach out to the world around her shining the light of Jesus on a dark world (Matthew 5:16).
My prayer is to be the last of these. I will admit this is a struggle. I have a long way to go.
However, I know I am not the same person I was before I met Jesus. As a result, some friends I love dearly have distanced themselves from me. Some even breaking my heart in certain ways. In short, because I'm now an alien some of my relationships have changed. While this saddens me greatly, I would exchange nothing for the gain I've found in the love of Christ. It is not easy being a weird alien from another planet, but I couldn't be more thankful for it.
