Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (1 Peter 2:11-12)
In the final part of his exhortation regarding the uniqueness and the demands of being the Church that Christ calls us to be, Peter emphasizes in this last pair of verses the necessity to separate from the world. He knew through his own transformation and the time he spent with the Lord that we were no longer at home in this world. Peter calls us to live as ‘aliens and strangers’ in the world but not of the world. Our holiness is to be apparent to all of those who peer into our lives. This holy nature is to be such that as others study us from a distance, they see consistency between our talk and our walk.
Our reflection today is a simple question: does your walk match your talk?
LOVE | ACCEPT | FORGIVE 