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June 19 Daily Devotional

Stranger and Companion

Frans Bakker

I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.... I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts. —Psalm 119:19, 63

Bible Reading

Psalm 119:57–64

Devotional

There are two characteristics that identify whether or not we are bound for the heavenly country. The first mark is whether we have become a stranger here in this world. That implies that we have been loosened from this world. Do not think that this is a little matter. Satan’s grip holds on to us in our natural weakness. The world entices us, and our own flesh feels at home in our enslavement to sin. Because of God’s grace and Christ’s finished work on the cross our chains can be broken. And in our freedom, we are easily identified as a follower of God. Where are you headed on your journey? Does Satan still have a grip on your life, or have you been set free?

The second mark that identifies those bound for heaven is their bond with those who also are no longer at home in this world. People living abroad feel drawn to their fellow countrymen that they meet there. How much more one feels drawn to those who are spiritually on the same road. The stranger in the earth seeks fellow strangers with whom he can converse and to whom he can open his heart.

Have you become a stranger in the earth? Then you also are a companion of all those who fear God. These two matters are inseparable. For the goal of fellow travelers bound for heaven is not simply their companionship. Their aim is not even heaven, it is not the pearly gates, neither the streets of gold, and not the palm branches, but above all their aim is Him who has drawn them from the service of sin into His holy communion.

The world calls heaven-bound travelers narrow-minded, but heavenly travelers know that they have an infinitely broader view than the people of the world, because their view is beyond death and grave!

 

From The Everlasting Word by Frans Bakker, compiled and translated by Gerald R. Procee. Reformation Heritage Books and Free Reformed Publications, 2007. Used by permission. For further information, click here.

 

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