My citizenship, where is it? Sometimes I’m torn up inside wondering where I belong.

Several minutes ago, I was on the phone with a couple from another country who are making a trip back to their homeland, Israel. While I’m terribly excited for them, I am also wondering about the conflict of the soul that will arise regarding just where they will consider their true “home” to be after they return from the Holy Land. Folks who call Israel’s God their Heavenly Father, and especially those of Jewish heritage, often think of the Holy Land as their real home. Someone said it in such simple terms, “Home is where the heart is.”

Here in America we hear quite a bit about illegal immigrants, those who, for varied reasons want to live in a country and enjoy its benefits as citizens, but do not want to become citizens for one reason or another. Citizens have certain privileges (or should have) as well as certain obligations.

There are no illegal immigrants in the Kingdom of God. There is only one way to become a citizen of God’s Kingdom. No one needs to be “without a country”. How does one get to be a citizen of a Kingdom he cannot see and has no earthly throne to visit?

First of all, a Kingdom has to have a Sovereign – a Ruler – a King. So we need to settle in our minds who that might be. If it’s God’s Kingdom, then that makes Him King – Sovereign – Ruler. God says that His Son, Jesus is the “ruler of all nations” (Revelation 1:5) and that He gave Him Jerusalem (Zion) as the place from where He will rule, “I have set My king on Zion, My holy hill.” Psalm 2:6. In that Psalm God goes on to say that He has given the nations to Jesus as a heritage and the ends of the earth as His possession. He further warns that if you happen to be a wise earthly ruler, you would serve the Lord with fear and with trembling. He concludes by reminding all who take refuge in Him that they are blessed.

Jesus, told His disciples that He was the way, the truth and the life and that no one could come to the Father except through Him. (John 14:6) All who take refuge in Him, whether an earthly ruler or the humblest earthly servant, will have citizenship in the Kingdom of God simply by believing that they are a sinner in need of God’s grace. Jesus was God’s provision to allow us to enter such an eternal Kingdom and I recall the day I discovered the reality of being transferred from the kingdom of darkness (this earthly kingdom) into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son.

“He (God the Father), has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:13

I knew where my true citizenship was from that moment on. I was “home”, if you will, and yet, I knew that I also would still feel the earthly sod under my feet until He called me to my eternal home in heaven where I would be in His literal presence. So, in reality, I am a citizen of both heaven and of earth. I have privileges and obligations while I’m still a citizen down here, but I am also a citizen of heaven and long to enjoy the privileges of that far off country such as walking and talking with Jesus face to face, breathing celestial air and calling it heaven. Until then…

Author: Peg / CCF Contributor All Rights Reserved Coffee Cup Friends