Citizenship in Heaven

By Paul Chappell

"For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."

Philippians 3:20-21

There was a time in America when our government acknowledged that we were a nation under God. Carved into the stone walls of the Capitol, the Supreme Court and our national monuments are reminders from Scripture of the roll of faith in the founding of our country. Today those truths are under attack. But even if these attacks succeed and every vestige of our heritage is taken away, this nation that we love is not our home. We are ultimately citizens of Heaven.

The fact that our home is in another land should produce a difference in the way that we live. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon said it this way: “Christians ought so to live that it were idle to speak of a comparison between them and the men of the world. It would not be a comparison but a contrast. No scale of degrees should be possible; the believer should be a direct and manifest contradiction to the unregenerate. The life of a saint should be altogether above and out of the same list as the life of a sinner. Wide as the poles asunder are life and death, light and darkness, health and disease, purity and sin, spiritual and carnal.”

The problem in our country is not that the sinners are rebelling against God; that has been true throughout history. The problem is that God’s children have adopted the manners and morals of the world around us. We should live each day with the knowledge that we are representatives of the King and behave in a way that brings honor and glory to His name.

Today's Rooted Principle:

Focus your affections on things in Heaven today, and you will find the problems of Earth growing smaller.