Κατὰ πίστιν ἀπέθανον οὗτοι πάντες, μὴ λαβόντες τὰς ἐπαγγελίας ἀλλὰ πόρρωθεν αὐτὰς ἰδόντες καὶ ἀσπασάμενοι καὶ ὁμολογήσαντες ὅτι ξένοι καὶ παρεπίδημοί εἰσιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. Heb 11:13, NA28
According to faith, these all died not having received what was promised, but having seen and welcomed them from a distance and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. Heb 11:13, translated from the NA28 Greek text
All truly in Christ are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). They were once spiritually dead in their sins, but are now alive, forgiven, and now strangers and exiles on the earth. Each day lived in this life by a child of God is one spent in enemy country. The world is not their friend. In fact, if the world is a person’s friend then he or she is not God’s friend. Why? Whoever is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. The Christians who deny self, take up their crosses and follow Christ each day will find enemies everywhere. Pressure will come to bear on them to conform to the world and become “relevant.” The Christian who does not give in to this pressure will be seen by all those not on this narrow path to be out of step, irrelevant, behind the times, and all other sorts of things that divide them from being identified with the world and its ways. Some call us “divisive.”