Recently, I took the family for a quick getaway to our favorite spot in Pismo Beach. It is always a wonderful time as we eat, relax, take in the ocean breeze and simply enjoy each other’s company. As we checked into the hotel, the clerk greeted us saying, “thank you for being our guest”. As we were unpacking the suitcase and placing each item in their proper place, the Pastor non sequitur moment began. Seeing the travel toothpaste, travel toothbrushes, travel contact lens solution, and even inputting the hotel wifi password, I asked myself “do we live as if we are simply guests in this world?

“I am a sojourner and guest among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead…” Genesis 23:4. For at the time, Abraham was a foreigner and did not possess any land in the country. Therefore, after Sarah died, Abraham asked the Hittites for a plot of land to bury his wife.

In Luther’s Genesis commentary, he writes, “a guest is a sojourner who is not a proprietor but is a stranger in the land in which he living. He has nothing of his own…Therefore they are sojourners and do not remain in the world but leave the world behind. Thus we are also guests. We have been reborn by the Holy Spirit through Baptism and the Word, and we live on earth as strangers and sojourners” Luther’s Works, American Edition Vol. 4:198.

Again, I asked, “Am I living as if I am a guest in this world? Of course, the great temptation is to believe otherwise as if this world becomes who we are. From the material, to earthly securities, to our own comforts and desires, rather than the anticipation for what is to come on the last day, we confine ourselves to this temporal life. It is quite easy to stumble into such pitfalls because life is whirl wind. So busy it becomes that, in our sinful nature, our eyes veer from the Word and His promises. In so doing, we flee to our flesh and live as if we are not strangers or sojourners in the land. Instead, we set up shop in this temporal life as if it is the totality of our being.

Jesus says “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” John 14:1-3.

Therefore, we are mere guests in this world because Jesus has overcome the world! Through His death and resurrection, we rejoice in the promise that eternal life is our eternal stay. As St Paul writes,

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the thing that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” 2 Cor 4:17-18.

Indeed, we are mere guests in this world, for the Lord has reconciled us to Himself through the power and promise of His Word!

Christ is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!
Alleluia!

Have a blessed April in Christ

✝️ Pastor Jeong

The full newsletter can be found here:
https://www.faithmoorpark.com/files/pdf/2024/2024-04-Newsletter.pdf