Live Like an Alien



“All these people were still living by faith when they died.

They did not receive the things promised;

they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. 

And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show

that they are looking for a country of their own.

If they had been thinking of the country they had left,

they would have had opportunity to return. 

Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God,

for he has prepared a city for them.”

Matthew 11:13-16

Where do I look for my blessing? In the eternal or the temporal?  Now or later?  In the physical or the spiritual?

Those who made it into the “Hall of Fame of Faith” found in Hebrews 11 did not receive their blessing here, but they continued to hope.  They never gave up because their motivation wasn’t in what they’d get out of it, but in who God was. 

They knew they belonged to Him and that they would soon join Him in a place where they would receive all that had been promised.  For now, though, they were content with God alone.

To be able to hold on to hope even when things around me look really bad, I must live like an alien in this world.