Heart Tracks - Aliens Among Us

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were strangers and aliens on earth." Hebrews 11:13...."The name of Jesus should be the food we eat and the air we breathe." Chris Tiegreen

Aliens from outer space have been a pop culture phenom since the time of H.G. Wells. Movies and TV programs have abounded with just such a theme. There are not a few who fully believe that aliens live among us today. In college, I had several friends who fully believed that Jesus Himself was an alien. Now here's a shock, though it shouldn't be for those who are His; they were and are right....but not at all in the way that they think. Jesus was an alien, and He lived among us as one. So do His disciples. Not aliens from another planet or solar system, but from another realm, the realm of the Kingdom of God. A realm that is fully alien to all that is grounded in the fallen system of this world. They live within a value system and mindset that is completely alien, the opposite to all that this world holds dear. Doing so, living so, makes them "strangers and aliens" in the midst of that world. Here's the question for us. Do we live a life that marks us strangers and aliens in this fallen world? Or, do we have little if any easily conforming to it? Are you an alien?

Here's something else. Jesus wasn't just an alien to the lost world He came to, He was an alien to the very "church" that should have been eagerly looking for Him. In a sense they were, but they expected someone who looked and acted very much like them. He didn't...at all, and so as His Word says, "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Two thousand years have not changed things very much. The church still looks for Jesus to come in ways and character that it defines. It happens each week in our fellowships, our organizational meetings, in most everything we do. We too often have expectations in what He'll do and be. He has to stick to our traditions and ideas. Whatever might be "alien" to them will be suspect. If this is true of the One who fully manifests the Kingdom of God, will it be less so for those of His who do the same? Both in the world and the church?

Have you ever come across a person that you could easily tell "wasn't from around here?" Everything about them sets them apart from the status quo. Language, habits, and behavior. This is to be the case for the people of God, of His Kingdom. We are to live in such a way that clearly marks as "not being from around here." Those who heard Christ often remarked that "no one has ever spoken as this Man does." Or lived as He did...or died and rose as He has. And now lives as He does. As He lives now through those who are His. Strangers and aliens. They don't fit in. They never get comfortable. And they long for the realm that is really their home. Pilgrims passing through, speaking a language this world has never known, and inviting others to join them, to become fellow aliens, strangers, and citizens of another place. His place. Are we among them?

Being such a one will cost. Hebrews tells us that the world is not worthy of such, though they themselves are so focused on His Kingdom that they never think that. They just live for Him....as strangers and aliens....Many, deeply rooted in this world, often say of them that, "They're so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good." Words spoken in ignorance. Someone else said that he hoped to be so heavenly minded as to be of much earthly good. The natives of this world are powerless to give the help this realm so desperately needs. Only He, working through His strangers and aliens, is able to do so. Will you and I be among them? Are we among them now?

Blessings,
Pastor O