Welcome to weekday wisdom, the scriptural meditations of doctrine and devotion.

Today we're looking at 1st Peter 2, verses 11 and 12.

Beloved I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which

wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when

they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on

the day of visitation.

Nobody wants to be the awkward outcast. No one, none of us, wants to feel like the outsider

that just doesn't fit in. Of course the awkward outsider makes for good stories, good

TV shows, good movies. And hopefully we all understand that even if someone is awkward

or maybe doesn't fit in that we should treat them with kindness and respect and welcome

them in to whatever group we're a part of. But nobody really wants to sign up to be

the awkward outcast. In fact, we want to be accepted, most of us want to be cool. Especially

as Christians, right? We see this a lot, that Christians oftentimes are nervous that

the world is going to look at us and perceive us as weird and not for the right reasons.

But here we are in 1st Peter 2, where we are encouraged, we are exhorted to embrace

our awkward Christian life. Beloved I urge you as sojourners and exiles, we are by God's

design, by God sending us into the world as his ambassadors, as his witnesses. We are

outsiders. I mean, we're here. We're here with a purpose, but we don't fit into the world

system values and purposes because we have higher values. We have a higher purpose given

to us by our maker. We are sojourners and exiles. This means that we are outsiders who have

been sent in, that we are passing through on a journey, on our way home, so that where

we dwell today is not home. We are aliens, foreigners who are here for a time with a specific

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