סְגֻלָּה A Peculiar People

Note the contradictions: The Christian believes that in Christ he has died, yet he is more alive than before and he fully expects to live forever. He walks on earth while seated in heaven and though born on earth he finds that after his conversion he is not at home here. Like the nighthawk, which in the air is the essence of grace and beauty but on the ground is awkward and ugly, so the Christian appears at his best in the heavenly places but does not fit well into the ways of the very society into which he was born.
~ Aiden Wilson Tozer


But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

~ 1 Peter 2:9 (NASB)


For the true believer, there are some days when we don’t just give intellectual assent to the truth that this earth is not our home.  Rather, we feel it deep down in our bones.  We “know in our knower” that something just ain’t right.

We are a very square peg in a round hole.

We sit in our chair at work and listen to the others talk about ANYTHING other than the things of G_d.

We walk through the store, and are struck by the futility of the material goods around us.  We feel the desperation around us as others look to obtain SOMETHING that means something.

As we walk in His Spirit, we even feel our bodies scream and fuss that we aren’t fulfilling their fleshly lusts.  MAN IS THAT VOICE LOUD!  But, we don’t even really want to listen.  We’ve tasted freedom and are running into His marvelous light.

We are different.  

We are different in a very good way.  Something in us has come completely alive, and some-other-thing in us has completely died.  It is almost like we are out of phase from the physical plane on which we live.  We are fully here, but it almost feels like we are window shopping the world.  We are in it.  But we are no longer of it.  There is no judgement of the others walking around on the other side of the window.  There is not even really any pity.  We have passed through those emotions along the way, and now simply feel the same Love for others, that He has poured onto and into us.

And even on the days when the circumstances and devices of the world system crash in around us – we can simply stand at rest… And stand, in Him, in profound and powerful peace.  And we can stand because we KNOW that all this will be over in just a little bit.  We are dead to this world already, we are dead even to ourselves – and we are now fully alive in Him.  This is a peculiar place to be, even for a peculiar people like those possessed by G_d, through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Delicious!  

Care for a taste beloved?  Life, here in Him, is naught but an appetizer for the epic feast on that Day.

Formless and vague and fleeting as it is, the mystical experience is the bedrock of religious faith. In it the soul, acting as a unity with all its faculties, rises above itself and becomes spirit; it asserts its claim to be a citizen of heaven.
~Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471)