A Young Person Who Makes a Difference! |
Those Who are Called |
Let us look at Hebrews 11:13: "All these died in faith, not receiving the promises but seeing them from afar and joyfully greeting them and confessing that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth."
Young one, right now you need to make a confession. You need to confess that you are a foreigner here. Not just now. It may be easy for you to stop reading these pages for a few seconds and say, "I am a foreigner." You may be alone in your room or reading in another place while the world is going by outside. However, in your house you tell your parents, "Dad, I'm a foreigner." Not just to your father because he may meet in the church life and will tell you, "Amen, me too." Say it also in your school to a companion: "Do you know what? I am a foreigner." He will look at you and tell you, "I doubt it very much. You don't have any accent." This is the difference you have to make. You are a foreigner with an accent and everything. You do not talk about the things the people of the world talk about. People do not understand what you are talking about. Some ask, "Where did you go for your vacation?" You can answer, "I went to a young people's conference." Then you are speaking "Greek" to them. This is why you are a foreigner to them. You also have a thick accent, you don't speak well. Everything you say is "mistaken," but it does not matter.
You have to testify that you are a foreigner. Go to school and from the first day say that you are a "foreigner" so that everyone knows that you do not belong to this world or this earth. Then they will think twice before inviting you to do things that only the worldly people do. Learn to testify that you are a "stranger." All those who lived by faith in Hebrews chapter 11 testified that they were strangers and that their life did not belong to this earth. What they wanted, desired, was their heavenly country.
Are you willing to be a foreigner? It is not easy. Anyone who lives away from his country knows this. The English language is spoken all over the world, and when foreigners come to the United States they try to speak English as well as possible so that no one will know that they are foreigners. At any rate, the Americans say, "Wow, you speak English well. Where did you learn?" There is always a word that betrays you as a foreigner. To be a foreigner is to suffer. Strangers suffer, they are discriminated against. We are foreigners. You are a foreigner.
If someone sometimes says that you are a foreigner, you should be happy about it. Don't long to be citizens of a country that is destined to disappear. All the countries of the world are destined for destruction. We, the Christians, are citizens of the New Jerusalem in which Christ is the king. One day He will come to rescue us and when this happens, all the nations of the earth will be destroyed. You are going to have an eternal, heavenly country. This is what you want. You may not know it, but this is what you want. For this you need God to appear to you. You need God to appear to you today, tomorrow, next month and next year, year after year until one day He will make Himself visible to you. He will return and you will not only have the Lord's appearing in your spirit, but also in person. You will be part of those who had His appearing. You will be taken and rescued by Him. Hallelujah! This is our hope and this should be your hope.
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