Just Passing Through

You may have experienced a similar situation that I found myself in recently.  I came to the cashier at a store and was asked if I wanted to be put on their advertising list so I can be informed of special “insider deals”.  I declined explaining that “I’m just passing through”.  I believe I explained a little more thoroughly that I was from out of town and that we didn’t have one of their stores in our locale.

I suspect God brought the phrase, “just passing through” to my mind later and had opportunity to brew a few spiritual thoughts from this.

How many of my and your decisions are based on life in this temporary world?  It does take a determined effort to have an eternal mindset, choosing to act on the motives of our impacting “life ever after” contrasting our short sojourn here.

A few passages in Scripture draw us an image that I believe inspired a famous hymn.  Looking at the historical character of David, we find a prayer to God in 1 Chronicles that establishes the concept we are challenged to acknowledge:

“And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.  ‘But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.  For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.’” 1 Chronicles 29:13-15 

I pray we all heed the New Testament instruction found in 1 Peter: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  (11)  Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” 1 Peter 2:10-11 

“This world is not my home
I’m just a-passing through
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue

The angels beckon me
From heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home
In this world anymore

Oh Lord, you know
I have no friend like you
If heaven’s not my home
Then Lord, what will I do?

The angels beckon me
From heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home
In this world anymore” – by Jim Reeves

On this pilgrimage with you, Pastor Larry