Citizens Of Heaven
“At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come”
Sickness and death have permeated the world both literally and figuratively. The physical sickness of Covid and cancer to the sickness of racism, misogyny and bigotry. Physical death due to the disease that ravages the body and the spiritual death that ravages the soul. The divisiveness of human beings one to another has never been more clear (at least as far as I can remember in my 51 years). The death of human relationship is difficult to see.
Everything, all the law and prophets hang on these two things: loving God and loving our neighbor. The hatred that we display toward each other is so visible, so palpable. It is clear and present and is causing deep harm.
The path to healing must begin with an acknowledgement that a sickness exists. It must then be diagnosed properly in order to deploy the necessary treatment to heal. In many cases healing has not even started because we will not own the sicknesses that have plagued us both individually and collectively.
When I was younger, elementary and high school age, I had hatred in my heart for white people. I grew up in an overwhelmingly predominately white ALT right environment. I attended private schools where the only other black folk I saw during the day were my sister and maybe 3 or 4 others. I was told everyday both overtly and covertly, either by word or deed that I didn’t belong or was not good enough. In some instances being called a nigger outright. Day by day the resentment and hatred grew, until it completely overwhelmed me.
I accepted Christ when I was 13 years old. But the physical act of openly professing Christ as my savior in church in front of the congregation and being baptized and all of that is merely a symbol of profession of faith and the willingness grow in that faint. As I began to study His word and grow in relationship with Christ I realized that my heart was deceitful. I had hatred in my heart for people that did not look like me because of the pain that I had suffered under the hand of discrimination, but there is no qualifying text of condition regarding loving our neighbor. There is no text in the Bible that allows for hating our neighbor because of what they have done to us or to others. We wrestle not agains flesh and blood. Our enemy is not other people. I professed the sin of hatred and asked Christ to fill my heart with love in spite of how I was feeling. That change was a process, but it happened. I wanted it to happen, I needed it to happen. I needed love to exist in my heart and not hatred. I needed to reconcile the fact that while folk may treat me horribly, I can still love them because God loves them no more and no less than He loves me. It was a process.
The racial climate in our country is not an easy one to navigate for me, because I know that in my flesh I am capable of hate, I stay in the face of God asking Him to never allow hatred to rear its ugly head in my heart again. You can claim in public that you love God and that you are a Godly person who reads their bible and sits in Church every Sunday, but if you do not love your neighbor, if you do not love your neighbor regardless of what they look like, regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of how they identify, regardless of what they have done, then you do not love God. He tells us how can you love me who you’ve never seen and hate your neighbor who you see every day.
Maybe folk take issue with the word hate, but the definition of hate is to feel and intense or passionate dislike for something or someone. Hatred is a feeling that is often associated with resentment, anger and disgust. We don’t like to admit how we truly feel about a thing. We don’t take responsibility for the issues of our heart, but we must. We must be transparent about how we feel. If those feelings do not line up with the word of God then we must pray and ask Him to change our hearts.
Philippians 3:18-21
“For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame”.
So what you glorify - your unapologetic perceived superiority, your wealth, the power you have by way of the office or position you hold, all the things you glory in will be your shame. It is ok to have wealth and to rise to high levels on your job, but it is what you do with those things that is of importance. Do you glorify God in those things or do you glorify the thing itself and/or yourself for having attained it?
“Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body”.
All of us are mortal. We are going to pass away and when we go we are not coming back this way. Our earthly bodies, this flesh and blood will turn to dust, but our spirit will live eternally with Him if we have chosen Him as our Lord and savior. Where we spend eternity is determined by what we do while we are yet living.
For those of us who profess Christ as our savior we know (or should know) that we are not of this world. We are in the world but this is not our home. Our citizenship is in heaven. That is why He tells us not to store up your treasures on earth where moths and vermin can destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
When you glorify your wealth and your possessions and then justify the killing of human life to protect that wealth and those possessions, none of which you can take with you, it is an indictment on your heart. There is no cure for the myriad maladies that plague the heart but Jesus the Christ. No one became flesh and was crucified on the cross for those same maladies, but Jesus the Christ. He alone has the power to save. Genuinely accept Him into your heart and allow Him to transform it.