" The necessary consequence of this life of the Christian in hope is that he learns to consider the present earthly life as a journey, a pilgrimage, something necessary for the sake
of the end but which does not have any independent value or attraction in itself. This is a thought which pervades and colours the entire epistle. Peter in the very opening words addresses the readers as sojourners of the dispersion – two terms which strikingly express that they are away from home, a colony with regard to heaven, scattered in a strange world as truly as the scattered Jews were a diaspora to the holy land and Jerusalem. He tells them to gird up the loins of their minds as befits a traveller journeying through. And again he says: ‘Pass the time of your sojourning in fear’ (1:17). Once more: ‘Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which
war against the soul’ (2:11). Without a certain detachment from this world, other-worldliness is not possible. Hope cannot flourish where the heart is in the present life. "

― Geerhardus Vos , Grace and Glory