“For our Citizenship is in Heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Philippians 3:20
For God’s people, we are but mere strangers and pilgrims on this earth. This world in its current state is not our home. Says the Psalmist:
I am a stranger in the earth.
Psalm 119:19
Like Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, we are but sojourners, travelling through this world. Consequently, we must set our eyes on the Kingdom above, “whose builder and maker is God“. Our focus must be upon the things of Heaven, not the things of this fallen world, which shall all pass away, “like the chaff on the summer threshing floor”. Hebrews 11:9-10; Colossians 3:1-2; Daniel 2:35
According to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, the only city that will endure is the City whose builder and maker is God. With the eye of faith, man may behold the threshold of Heaven, flushed with God’s living glory. Through His ministering servants the Lord Jesus is calling upon men to strive with sanctified ambition to secure the immortal inheritance. He urges them to lay up treasure beside the throne of God.
Prophets & Kings, pg. 274
As a result, our conduct in our day to day lives must reflect Christ and His Heavenly Kingdom. In all that we do and in all that we say, the Light of Christ Jesus must shine in us, that “men may see our good works and glorify our Father who art in Heaven.” It is by the shining of this light, that we illuminate the darkness around us and reveal the pathway to the Celestial City, that others may also find the Light of life. We must live as true citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Philippians 1:27
It is true that at one time, we were separate from the Israel of God, Galatians 6:15-16, but now, through Christ, we have been grafted in to the True Vine. We, “which in time past were not a people, are now the people of God” through Jesus Christ. Romans 11:24; 1 Peter 2:10.
That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Ephesians 2:12-13
Therefore, as Citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom, let us abstain from the carnal lusts and desires of the heart which war against the soul, for it is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?“…….Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9; 1 Peter 2:11.
Let us strive to “do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with God”, Micah 6:8, that we may pass the time of our pilgrimage on this earth with fear and reverence, for this earth is not our home. 1 Peter 1:17
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Revelation 21:1-2
”But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven….”
Hebrews 12:22-23 NKJV
Loud Cry Compendium
Loud Cry Compendium 