“And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear.”
conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here
Christians should view themselves as pilgrims passing through a foreign country (Psalm 30:12; Hebrews 11:13). Our values are under pressure from the foreign culture in which we live. The Christian today lives in changing, relative values. We are strangers to this world because we live according to absolute values.
“For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead,” (1 Peter 4:3-5).
Christian pilgrims are to keep the priority on the things of most excellent value.
“Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation,” (1 Peter 2:11).
The word “conduct” means to turn back, return, to move back to a point or area from which one has previously departed, but with more explicit emphasis upon the return. Hence, it means to move about in a place, to sojourn. The idea is to order one’s conduct. It is also an urgent command.
“Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others,” (Ephesians 2:3).
“For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you,” (2 Corinthians 1:12).
“But if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth,” (1 Timothy 3:15)
PRINCIPLE:
God wants us to keep absolute eternal values in view.
APPLICATION:
This world is not our home. We are in Satan’s territory. We must have a clear, genuine, ringing testimony in the face of the pressures of relative values.
“Time” refers to a series of events. How much time do you have left on earth? God wants us to live our lives in view of eternity. Keep eternity always before your life! This will produce a holy life.
