Strangers and Foreigners

Strangers and Foreigners

I parked my bicycle, fingering my map of Cambridge for reassurance. Directions not being my strength, I knew I could easily get lost in this maze of roads bursting with historic buildings.
    Life should have felt idyllic, for I had just married my Englishman and moved to the UK. But I felt adrift. When I kept my mouth closed I blended in, but when I spoke I immediately felt branded as an American tourist. I didn't yet know what my role was, and I quickly realized that blending two stubborn people into one shared life was harder than I had anticipated.
    I related to Abraham, who left all that he knew as he obeyed the Lord's call to live as a foreigner and stranger in a new land ( GEN. 12:1). He pressed through the cultural challenges while keeping faith in God, and 2,000 years later the writer to the Hebrews named him a hero. Like the other men and women listed in this chapter, Abraham lived by faith, longing for things promised, hoping and waiting for his heavenly home.
    Perhaps you've always lived in the same town, but as Christ-followers we're all foreigners and strangers on this earth. By faith we press forward, knowing that God will lead and guide us, and by faith we believe He will never leave nor abandon us. By faith we long for home.
    Father God, I want to live by faith, believing Your promises and knowing that You welcome me into Your kingdom. Enlarge my faith, I pray.
    God calls us to live by faith, believing that He will fulfill His promises.

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HEBREWS 11:8-16

HEBREWS 11:8-16

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he is good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky as countless as the sand on the seashore.
    All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners 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 heaven;y one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

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MARK 12:1-27

MARK 12;1-27

Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: " A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty- handed. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.
    " He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, " They will respect my son.'
    " But the tenants said to one another, ' This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. " what then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven't you read this passage of Scripture:
    " The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes'?"
    Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.
    Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, " Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we?'
    But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. " why are you trying to trap me?" he asked. " Bring me a denarius and let me look at it." They brought the coin, and he asked them, " Whose image is this? and Whose inscription?"
    " Caesar's," they replied.
    Then Jesus said to them, " Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.'
    And they were amazed at him.
    Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. " Teacher," they said, " Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves his wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?"
    Jesus replied, " Are you not in error because you do not the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given into marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising-have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ' I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but the living. You are badly Mistaken!'

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Please Come In

Please Come In

Jenny's house situated on a little country lane, which is often used in rush hour by drivers who want to avoid the nearby main road and traffic lights. A few weeks ago work men arrived to repair the badly damaged road surface, bringing with them large barriers and " No Entry" signs. " I was really worried at first," " Thinking that I would be unable to get my car out until the road work was finished. But then I went to take a look at the signs more closely and realized that they said ' No entry: Access for Residents Only.' No detours or barriers for me. I had the right to go in and out whenever I liked because I lived there. I felt very special!"
    In the Old Testament, access to God in the Tabernacle and the temple was strictly limited. Only high priest could go in through the curtain and offer sacrifices in the Most Holy Place, and then only once a year ( LEV. 16:2-20; HEB. 9;25-26). But at the very moment Jesus died, the curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, showing that the barrier between man and God was destroyed forever ( MARK 15:38).
    Because of Christ's sacrifice for our sins, all those who love and follow Him can come into His presence at any time. He has given us the right of access.
    Lord, Thank You for paying such a high price to enable me to have unrestricted entry into Your presence!
    Access to God's throne is always open.

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HEBREWS 10:19-25

HEBREWS 10:19-25

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

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MARK 11:19-33

MARK 11:19-33

When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.
    In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, " Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"
    " Have faith in God," Jesus answered. " Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ' Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
    They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. " By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. " And who gave you the authority to do this?"
    Jesus replied, " I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John's baptism-was it from heaven, or human origin? Tell me!"
    They discussed it among themselves and said, " If we say, ' From heaven,' he will ask, ' Then why didn't you believe him?' But if we say, ' Of human origin'... "( They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.)
    So they answered Jesus, " We don't know."
    Jesus said, " Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."

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