By Craig M. Watts
As aliens and exiles whose hearts are in heaven and whose pride is in the cross alone, we draw back from national pride. But at the same time we can, and I believe should, be thankful, thankful to live in America, thankful for opportunities we enjoy, thankful for freedom we exercise, thankful for material abundance we experience, thankful for the beauty of the land "from sea to shining sea," thankful for the people who give of themselves without compulsion, thankful for the role Christianity has played in its history. Thankful to God. Not blindly patriotic, not uncritical of some policies or practices but genuinely thankful. There is much for which to be grateful in this land.
And we can be thankful without forgetting who we are, not primarily Americans but Christians whose standards of behavior, vision of goodness, and most noble responsibilities come from above, not from any place on earth. Yet by living as aliens and exiles we can best bless America and every other place where Christians may live. The early church understood this well. In the ancient Christian document, the Epistle to Diognetus written about 130 AD there is an amazing statement that describes the rightful character of Christian existence. He wrote of followers of Christ being a people who live everywhere but belong nowhere. In practices of eating and clothing, they conform to local customs. Yet, the ancient writer declares this: "[Christians] display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but as sojourners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. What the soul is in the body, so the Christian is in the world. Christians are confined in the world as in a prison, and yet they are preservers of the world."
What a powerful phrase, "preservers of the world." We can only fill this role as we understand that we are not ordinary American citizens but a distinctive people called out of the world. Yet we live in the world, in America and elsewhere, loving, serving, praying and proclaiming hopes and possibilities that reach to heaven itself. We can best bless and preserve this great nation by walking in the path of that supreme stranger and exile, Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Craig M. Watts is Pastor of Royal Palm Christian Church in Coral Springs, FL.