Focal passage: 1 Peter 2:11-17
After 16 years of growing up in Colorado, I attended a university in Kansas and lived in the Sunflower State an additional two years post-graduation. Through a series of noteworthy events, too perfect to be coincidental, I felt led to move to North Carolina.
It’s been four trips around the sun since I made it to Durham, still, my reference to “home” has more to do with my audience than location.
More often than not, Colorado is home. When I’m catching up with college friends, we share Kansas as “home.” During vacation, North Carolina is the home I miss.
Scripture explains that none of these temporary areas are the true dwelling place for which we were made.
First Peter 2:11 calls us “sojourners and pilgrims” reminding us to abstain from the temptations of this fleeting abode in an attempt to point others to what is eternal.
Life has a way of reminding the believer that we were made for another world – another home.
During these times, we can recall 1 Peter 2:13-17 regarding our responsibilities on this side of heaven. We are to submit ourselves “to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by Him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good” (1 Peter 2:13-14, 16).
The purpose of these responsibilities is to show love and honor to others. “… Yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king” (1 Peter 2:17).
We can pray for those we’d rather condemn, ask God for humility when it’d be easier to prove our point, and love God and one another more than anything the world offers us.
By doing so, the broken world can deny but not evade that we were made for Someone greater.