Grains of Sand

Pixabay Since the beginning of this year I have been reading through the Bible with a group of friends from my church. This morning I read through a few chapters from John, including the passage containing Jesus' prayer for His disciples in John 17. Part of that prayer is this: " I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world ". This last bit is repeated a couple of verses later. When I came to today's verses from Peter's letter to the pilgrims scattered throughout the Roman world, I read: " Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day that he visits us ". (1 Peter 2:11, 12) As I read John's words I wondered if, at the time, they had registered on the discip...

Pixabay Paul Tripp writes: " Perhaps we can find no more real and present argument for heaven than the angst that we all carry in the face of the temporary and dissatisfying awes of the present." He then quotes C. S. Lewis: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." Placing our focus in life on eternity's destination changes what life looks like as it is lived out with anticipation of our arrival there. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go on from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion.  —Psalm 84:5-7 When Peter writes his first letter, he addresses it to " …exiles scattered ."  "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect,  exi...