Living as citizens of another country - Philippians 3:20

SCRIPTURE: Philippians 3:20 (The Message)
But there's far more to life for us. We're citizens of high heaven! We're waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ

A STORY:
A Sunday school teacher of 4th and 5th graders asked about Heaven, stating that it was such a wonderful place and that everyone wants to go there. She asked, “How many of you would like to go to heaven right now?” No volunteers. “Jenny, don’t you want to go to heaven right now?” “No ma’am! My mommy told me to come straight home after Sunday school.”

AN OBSERVATION:
We are more like the little girl in the story than we are like the scripture from Paul’s letter. We might be citizens of heaven, but we live as if it is a foreign land that has little or no connection to the reality of our life, a place that our earthly connections do not want or wish us to go.

It is a place that we have heard about, vaguely, but that is as far as we wish to take it.

If we knew, really knew, that our citizen papers were in another land would we honestly live any differently today … especially if that “other” land was heaven? Would we think differently … act differently … interact differently? Would we work so hard to establish a base of operation in the here and now or would we begin to live extravagantly … especially if we knew that our citizenship papers gave us unlimited resources?

Most of us live hesitantly, questioning every decision. Or, as was shared some time ago by an elderly citizen who had fallen and broken his hip, “I walked all the time like I was going to fall and I did.” To which his doctor said, “There you go. I try to convince all of my patients to walk with confidence and not in fear and you will have less chances of falling.” The doctor makes a good point, not only for our physical life, but for a spiritual life as well. If we question every step we are taking, walking as if we are going to fall, then we will indeed end up on our backs looking up. If we go through this life constantly questioning our relationship with God, taking hesitant steps spiritually, we too will end up sitting out on the joys that God has in store for us. We will miss out on so much because we just were too sure.

We, as citizens of the high heaven, ought to walk with the confidence that we belong to another world that has given us all the resources we need to make it through this world. With that sense of holy boldness we step forward not out of fear of going some place that our “mommy” doesn’t want us to go, but with the assurance that our heavenly father is ever calling us forward to embrace the future that he has planned out for us.

PRAYER:
With the confidence of a faith rooted in your promises heavenly Father, help us today to step forward with a holy boldness to live the life that you have designed for us to live. Amen!