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“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” (1 Peter 2:11-12)

Strangers and pilgrims. Thus Peter describes our position of separation from the world. We are in the world, but only temporarily, and the primary importance of our time in the world is its contribution to our journey, which culminates in reaching our final destination. When we settle down into the world, we lose our “strangers and pilgrims” status, and risk not arriving at our destination.

To me, and perhaps to you too, the primary temptation is not necessarily to settle down and become a full-fledged inhabitant of the world. Rather, it’s easy to start trying to become in the world somewhat like the possessors of green cards are in the United States—not quite an alien, but not quite a citizen, attempting to keep one’s heavenly citizenship yet still enjoy some of the seemingly less base pleasures of society. No, I don’t want to become an atheist and scoff at the gospel. I don’t even want to become part of the church movements toward “easy-believism” and the things that go along with that. But I would like to settle down a little bit and not always take life quite so seriously. I would like to join in a little with the pleasures of those around me. In other words, it would be easy to start settling into the world.

We see this “green card” mentality all around in the world’s churches. Those who profess to be Christians don’t accept moral problems that don’t bother many in the world, but they try to combat these problems by putting money, time, and energy, which could have been used for the propagation of the gospel, into political campaigns which resemble the ways the men of the world seek to change society. They protest the spread of wickedness on television and movies, but they render their protest practically useless by continuing to watch television and attend the theater. They preach from the Bible, but they water down the message to make it more palatable to the masses.

We should consider our own lives and make sure we aren’t harboring the same leanings. Does our love and work for Christ diminish as we get involved in the campaigns and causes of the world, even the non-political ones? Are we careful enough about the world’s media, even the newspapers and books that we read and the CDs and tapes that we listen to? Maybe we don’t preach the watered-down, easy gospel of the mainstream churches, but are we soft on ourselves, allowing “little” sins to pass by without much concern?

In Genesis, we see, perhaps, the difference between a stranger and one of our “green card”-type half-citizens. Abraham (then Abram) and Lot lived in Haran, apparently with the privileges of full citizens (although Terah had originally taken them to Haran to begin the journey from Ur to Canaan). But God told Abraham, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee…” (Genesis 12:1, emphasis mine). When Abraham and Lot left Haran and began the trek to Canaan, they would no longer be citizens, as normal as anyone else; rather, they became strangers, separate from the society around them. “And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.” (Genesis 12:5)

No longer did Abraham live in a permanent house; now he lived in tents, which could be easily moved from place to place as need required. “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” (Hebrews 11:9-10)

But the line is perhaps demonstrated even more clearly later, when Abraham suggested to Lot that they separate, to ease the contention that apparently started when their herdmen argued about grazing land. First, Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. Yes, he was still a stranger, a sojourner. But he had apparently started to look at the inhabitants of the land and their society. And later we find him in a house instead of a tent, with sons in law who were men of Sodom (Genesis 19). He was settling in, and, while he was not necessarily a full part of everything in the city, it had become hard for him to leave.

Abraham, on the other hand, continued to live in tents. He maintained his mobility and his separation from society around him. Even two generations later, his grandson Jacob and his sons were able to pull up stakes and move to Egypt.

It is tremendously easy for us to become comfortable in the world, to allow ourselves to settle in and start to become part of some of the things around us. On the other hand, attempting to keep separate from the world is an uphill battle all the way. But it is the only way to heaven.