Temporary Residents

Temporary Residents

Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.

1 Peter 1:17

Peter is saying, “Because you have a Father who doesn’t play favorites, live your life during the time of your pilgrimage on earth in fear.” In other words, you should fear the Father. You should not fear him because he will punish you, which is the way unbelievers and even the devil fear him. But you should fear that he will leave you and take away his protecting hand, just as a pious child would be afraid of making his father angry and doing something to displease him. God wants you to have that kind of fear so you will guard yourself from sin and serve your neighbor while you live here on earth.

If you are a sincere believer, you have all of God’s treasures and are God’s child. The rest of your life on earth is merely a pilgrimage. God allows you to live in this body and walk on this earth so that you can help other people and bring them to heaven. Therefore, we must use all things on earth in no other way than as guests who travel across the country and come to an inn. They spend the night there and take only food and lodging from the innkeeper. They don’t claim that the innkeeper’s property now belongs to them. This is how we must deal with material possessions—as if they do not belong to us. We should enjoy only as much as is necessary for us to maintain our bodies and use the rest to help our neighbors. Similarly, the Christian life is like being an overnight guest. “For here we do not have an enduring city” (Hebrews 13:14), but we must go to our Father in heaven. This is why Peter says we shouldn’t behave wildly but live in fear.