Hey everybody, this is Gerald.

Thanks for tuning in for the Bridgetown Daily for Tuesday, January 19th.

I have found so much comfort and encouragement out of the New Testament epistle by Peter,

his first epistle.

And it begins with these words, Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ to God's

elect, exiles, scattered throughout the provinces, and then he lists them all off.

But just even in those first words, there's so much connection for me.

Isn't this our reality?

He addresses God's people as the elect, meaning these, this identity of being a chosen son

or daughter of the most high king, that's clearly who we are in this age.

But also, we're exiles.

This is our reality.

Suns and daughters, temporarily in a strange land.

And I don't know about you, but I feel this exile idea now more than ever.

Maybe even the first time in my life, I've just felt that to be a Christian is no longer

the moral high ground.

To be an evangelical is more about politics than about what we believe about Jesus, if we

even identify with that title anymore.

In so many ways, especially in this past 10 months, there has been so much accusation

by the cultural majority against the church and against followers of Jesus.

Some of that is good and we need to own it.

But much of it is not.

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