HEY GUYS. I HAVE A NEW TATTOO! :D I’m pretty excited about it, and I didn’t think I would blog about it, but there have been some cool affirmations about this concept, so I want to share!
((Details for TheCall Detroit are still in the works so I have not yet started to write about that. BUT BE EXCITED. Many people are in the midst of a 40-day fast in preparation for Detroit, so prayers would be really appreciated as we press in and ask God to mark the nation and the world by this single event! I’m sure I will write a blog about fasting soon, but if you have any questions until then PLEASE message me! I don’t want there to be any confusion about fasting!))
First of all let me explain my tattoo. The word is Greek and says parepidemos, which means: “a stranger; a sojourner in a strange place; a foreigner.” Some translations say, “alien” (like an illegal alien, okay, not like a green guy who comes from outer space). My inspiration for this was a section of Hebrews 11, which says, “These all [Abraham, Isaac, etc.] died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:13-16)
The word pilgrim there is parepidemos. Yep. I’ve always thought this was an epic section of the Bible (me when I was younger: “DID YOU KNOW THE BIBLE SAYS THE WORD ALIEN?!?! BAHAHAHAHA!!!”), but I never totally understood it until coming here. We’ve talked soooo much about eternity and when God renews the Heavens and the earth and I’ve realized that my citizenship really is in Heaven. I am seated with Christ in heavenly places.
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…” (Ephesians 2:4-6)
That’s where I am spiritually—seated with God in heaven. That’s where all Christians are! We need to quit wailing and begging God to let us into intimacy with Him, because we are already close to Him! Not only are we seated with Him, but also the Holy Spirit is WITHIN us. We are encapsulated by God! One of my teachers said it this way, “Most Christians spend their lives knocking on the door to the room that they are already in.” Come into your identity! You are seated with Christ! God is inside you! Recognize this and now act in a way respective to your identity—quit wallowing in sin and begging and pleading with God for forgiveness; He has already forgiven you. Realize that your citizenship is now in Heaven and that you have become a stranger to the earth. Pursue God with everything and start acting like you really do belong to God—put away the junk of your life before God and really chase after Him!
Whew, end rant. Okay, so this is the basis for the concept of being a stranger on the earth. Even knowing all of this, I still had some trouble explaining it to people. Then we came to Dream Stream (one of my classes for TheCall Institute) and something very neat happened…
A girl on the Strike Team (what you can be a part of after a year of TCI), Lauren, shared a dream she had back in February 2011. She was standing with the Lord on a beach. She asked Him, “Lord, where are we?” He responded, “The Outer Banks.” She then asked, “How do we go deeper?” The first thing the Lord said was, “Fasting,” to which she inquired, “Is there anything else we can do?” And the Lord spoke the word, “Stranger.” Then she wrote a check for the amount “D.11.11” and that was it!
In the dream Lauren wasn’t asking God where they were physically, but spiritually. And she wanted to know how to get to the deeper things of God. It’s interesting to note that the outer banks of an ocean are right before the drop off—they are the last point before going into a total abyss (our teacher is a scuba diver, so he knew exactly what was meant by “outer banks”). In the dream God said that the church is right on the edge—just about to plummet into the depths of who God is—into a true revival! The way we attain this is by fasting (which actually humbles us; it kills our pride by making us weak as we realize we can’t do everything on our own strength) and by becoming a stranger to the world.
At this point I got REALLY excited, because just six days earlier I got the Greek word for stranger tattooed on my foot! I shared this with them and everyone was like, “WHAAAT? Seriously?!” And Sam, our teacher, asked to find the verse that talks about being a stranger to the world, so I flipped to Hebrews 11:13 and read it aloud, but it didn’t really fit what was being addressed, so someone else read another verse, 1 Peter 2:11.
In all the research that I did before getting this tattoo, I never noticed this verse. It is absolutely phenomenal.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage 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 2:9-12)
I was at first a little upset that I had said the wrong verse (just being honest here!) but then my mind wrapped around this other verse, which uses the same Greek word parepidemos. While the verse in Hebrews talks about people of the Old Testament who were foreigners on earth, this section of Peter’s letter addresses the New Testament church and calls them foreigners as well! It’s much more applicable; furthermore, these verses in Peter tell the church how to be a stranger to the world. As foreigners, we ought to abstain from sinful desires and live pure lives! This makes a great amount of sense! But it goes even further than that… Think of being a stranger or a foreigner—imagine I go to live in Thailand randomly. I know nothing of Thailand. I don’t know the language or the food or the customs—I am totally unfamiliar with everything of that culture. This is how we ought to be in regards to the sinful ways of the world; we should be strangers to sin. We should know nothing of it and we should not have the same mindset as the world. The world might say you have to be thin to be beautiful, and you have to work 40 hours a week to be successful, and you need a college degree to really learn anything, and you should find enjoyment by staring at screens all day, and you should do whatever gives you pleasure and and and…
But not Christians. We ought to be disconnected from the world. We ought to be unplugged from everything the world says we should do—just look at Jesus! Jesus was remarkably disconnected from the culture of his day. Jesus hung out with the prostitutes and tax collectors (people he shouldn’t have been around)! Jesus butted heads with the Pharisees because of this fact—because He was not going to let the ways of his culture determine how he lived. And yet Jesus was relevant! Why? Because Jesus was authentic to who he was—he was a stranger on earth and he was not afraid to act like it, yet people still flocked to him. People yearned for him—the man untouched by a religious culture that was steeped in mediocrity and sin.
I am a stranger here, a pilgrim here!
Oh, and the end of the dream. Lauren and Sam believe that D.11.11 was prophetic. You see, on 11/11/11 we are heading to Detroit for TheCall solemn assembly. And it is at that place where we will fast and mark ourselves as strangers on this earth—those two things will enable us to cash the check and dive into the deep, deep things of God.
And we are excited beyond words.
Next week sometime we’ll be getting all of our details regarding Detroit. We are leaving November 4th (the day before my birthday) and will be returning late the 13th. We know we’re staying in a church basement and in the days before TheCall we will be having rallies at surrounding churches and ministering to the people of Detroit. We know things are going to shift in our nation after thousands of people come together to fast and mark ourselves as strangers on the earth. Keep us in your prayers! As I said, we are in the midst of a 40-day fast and it’s pretty intense. God is remarkably faithful and we are getting breakthrough, but there is still a battle to be fought in the days leading up to TheCall. Pray, pray, pray!
Also, here is a link to an awesome song by Justin Rizzo, one of the IHOP worship leaders. It’s about being a stranger on the earth! :D
Let me know how I can pray for you guys! And please be praying for me! Have a blessed rest of the week!
Rachel
(Originally posted October 12th on Tumblr)
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