First Presbyterian Church Of Baton Rouge

When the church is truly living out of our identity in Christ, we know that we are not really home here. We are fish out of water when our neighbors think the real meaning of life is actually accumulating the most wealth. We do not repudiate material things, we simply hold them but lightly. These are means, not ends; gifts not possessions. We weep when we have losses of property and houses but we never say, “I have lost everything” for everything to us is Christ and he cannot be lost. We speak the common language in the marketplace, yet we know that the language of our homeland--the words of worship, the story of God’s redemption, the precious Scriptures—may well sound like gibberish to our neighbors. We may well live in the same home for decades but we never feel truly home there, for this world is but a stop on the way to the heavenly country. We know there is a higher way than revenge, a more excellent path than the constant jockeying for respect found in the world. We live under the law of love.