But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

The ungodly cannot comprehend the godly; they scoff at them, they turn their glory into shame because they themselves love vanity and seek after lying.

The godly man is not understood by the people among whom he dwells; God has made him to be a stranger and a foreigner in their midst.

They who are born twice have a life that cannot be comprehended by those who are only born once. Those who have received the Spirit of God have a new spirit within them that is so singular that the carnal mind cannot perceive what it is.

Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned. When a man has become a new creature in Christ Jesus, the old look at him, they see him actuated by motives they cannot understand.

They see that he is kept in check by forces they do not acknowledge, that he is constrained by energies of which they are not partakers, and that he looks for something they do not desire.

So the Christian becomes in a measure like to Christ himself, of whom the poet sings: “The Jewish world knew not their King, God’s everlasting Son.”

“Therefore, the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not” (1 John 3:1, KJV).

Charles Spurgeon

Further reading

• WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE WHAT SOMEONE BELIEVES ABOUT GOD?
• JOHN MARK COMER FURTHER CLOUDS HIS POLYTHEISM
• THE NEW GOSPEL MAY MAKE SINNERS HAPPY BUT IT DOESN’T SAVE THEM