What do you think about Hospice?
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, (Philippians 3:20 NKJV)
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, (1 Peter 1:1 NKJV)
1Pe 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech [you] as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
The Greek words for Pilgrim and stranger are:
Paroikov having a home near, i.e. (as noun) a by-dweller (alien resident): –foreigner, sojourn, stranger.
parepidhmov par-ep-id’-ay-mon
an alien alongside, i.e. a resident foreigner: –pilgrim, stranger.
Hospice from the Latin hospes: to host a guest or stranger
a home providing care for the sick, especially the terminally ill.
archaic
a lodging for travelers, especially one run by a religious order.
When I first heard the definition of hospice I thought wow! We all live in hospice. We are guests here on earth. Strangers as our citizenship is in heaven. We are just waiting for the inevitable death. I believe that when I die I will pass from death to life or as I like to say pass from life to eternal life.
We are called pilgrims aliens here on earth because our citizenship is in heaven. Another name for pilgrim is inmate. Think about it, not in the form of being a prisoner, but in the arena of everyday life in prison. You eat someone else’s food, live in someone else’s housing, wear someone else’s clothing, and are under someone else’s money system buying from someone else’s stores. If that is not being alienated from our citizenship and living as a pilgrim or sojourner; What is?
We are living in this world as sojourners, pilgrims, inmates, or aliens. We are just passing through this world until we reach our home in heaven. So today, I look at the world as synonymous with the word hospice we are all at different stages physically and one more day closer to the end of this life and closer to the next.
In Christ,
Greg