Who talks like that anymore? I thought to myself as we were hugging some very dear friends after an all-too-brief reunion. As we turned to go, they said, “Don’t be a stranger.” My initial thought was that only old people talk like that these days.

I began to reflect on it as we headed home.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has a number of definitions for the word “stranger” such as “foreigner” or “resident alien,” but there is a definition I want to highlight here: “A person or a thing that is unknown or with whom one is unacquainted.”

In our departure scenario, this description did not really apply. We’ve known each other for years and have experienced both good and bad times together. But the currents of life have taken us to different parts of the country. In that simple statement, we seniors are conveying our mutual affection for each other and a desire to maintain the relationship as much as it is humanly possible.

Scripture tells us that we, as born-again Christians, were once “strangers” to God. As the Apostle Paul relates it, “You were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:12-13, ESV)

He goes on to elaborate on how Christ Jesus has broken down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles through His sacrificial work, thus allowing us to inherit the promises of God. Paul sums this up by saying, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” (2:19)

In saying we are members of the “household of God,” he is telling us we are family.

Being a family raises intimacy to a much higher level. Sadly, with so many coming from broken and dysfunctional families, we often fail to appreciate the level of intimacy God desires for us to have with Him. It was at great cost to the Father to establish us as sons and daughters that we might experience this relational intimacy.

The author of Hebrews explains it this way: “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (10:19-22)

God’s desire is for us to “draw near.” If we spent as much time with our spouse or significant other as we do with the Lord, how long would that relationship last? (Asking for a friend.) God is telling many of us, “Don’t be a stranger.” I, for one, will not be a stranger to the Lord.

What say ye, Man of Valor?
Semper Fidelis!