The Time of Our Sojourning Here Part 1

1 Peter 1:17-19, “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”

We are all keenly aware of the finite amount of time we have here on earth. Perhaps not at first, perhaps not when we are young and vibrant and in vigor, but with the passing of time and the graying of the temples, with the creaking of the knees and the wrinkling of the face, we realize all the more that we are just passing through. We are sojourners. We are temporary residents, and there is no permanence to be had on this earth. Even so, many of us grow attached, or get diluted into thinking we will take it with us when we shake off this mortal coil, and our entire lives become about amassing more and more, and acquiring vaster quantities of things that lose their appeal as soon as we acquire them.

Oddly enough, it is those who ought to understand the temporary nature of the human experience best that continue to insist we are to amass and hoard, and of course give them as much of it as our hearts will allow so that we might get more as a return on investment for having sent them the substantial check in the first place.

I find it strange that preachers live as though they are here for the long haul instead of just passing through, and if you bring up the topic be prepared for either fight or flight because things are bound to get tense if not downright ugly.

For Peter, being sojourners here on earth was a foregone conclusion. He did not dwell on the topic, he did not elaborate, because he assumed those who would read his words would have lived enough years to understand that men are born, they live, and they die. It is the way of things.

As such, Peter addressed how we should conduct ourselves while passing through this life, rather than attempt to convince anyone that this life was passing, and fleeting.

Again we are confronted with what the Word of God says regarding the way in which we ought to conduct ourselves throughout the time of our sojourning here, and what men say regarding our conduct while we journey through this life.

To hear some men tell the tale, whether or not your life mirrors the Word of God, or whether your conduct is different than that of the world, is irrelevant. We can dress like the world, act like the world, speak like the world, party like the world, curse like the world, be duplicitous like the world, and it’s peachy keen with God. He knows who you are, you know He knows who you are, so why live any different than how your flesh desires you to live?

God’s your buddy, He’s your pal, and He understands why you don’t take Him as seriously as perhaps He thinks you ought to, or why your life mirrors darkness more than it does light.

If this were the case, if God truly were this big, fuzzy, bearded fellow in heaven who just shrugged his shoulders and winked at our sins, why pray tell would Peter insist that we ought to conduct ourselves throughout the time of our sojourning here in fear?

When we look at certain scriptures without denominational blinders, and without filtering them through what someone else said they mean, we come to realize that reality is very different than the illusion many have fashioned for themselves, and as we journey through this life, we must do so with fear.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.