We have all heard about people who are said to be “so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly use.” Perhaps there are a few such people. But most of those in this world—many Christians among them—are so wrapped up in the things of this earth that they have no time for heaven or eternal values.
The Christian should realize that he has changed his citizenship. In praying for his disciples, our Lord said, “I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:15, 16, RSV).
When the seventy returned from their mission, they were rejoicing that even the demons were subject to the name of Jesus. The Lord’s reply was, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
Speaking of the heroes of faith, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city” (Hebr. 11:13–16).
Moses, the same writer says, “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.… He endured as seeing him who is invisible” (vv. 25, 27b).
And Abraham “went out, not knowing where he was to go.… For he looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (vv. 8b,10).
Christians need to know the place of their spiritual citizenship. It helps clarify many problems and prevent unnecessary frustrations.
But being a Christian involves far more than a heavenly citizenship; it also involves living as a Christian in this world. It means being the very best kind of citizen. It means showing the fruits of the Holy Spirit in daily relationships with other people. It includes not only love for God but also love for our fellow man. We should be concerned for our neighbor’s best interests as if they were our own.
Almost immediately after our Lord affirmed the heavenly citizenship of those who believe on him, he spoke of their earthly obligation to others through the story of the Good Samaritan. No degree of heavenly involvement can absolve us from our responsibility to be good neighbors.
What then, is the proper balance in the life of one who is a citizen of two worlds, so to speak?
Balance is established, first of all, by a firm footing. We can maintain a right relation with God and with man only by standing firm on Jesus Christ, the immovable foundation. There can be no right relation with men unless there is a right relation with God, and no man can attain this merely by being a good neighbor. Rather, he becomes a good neighbor by receiving Christ into his own heart. Then and only then is it possible for him to love his neighbor as himself.
This effective balance in life is the result of God’s grace in the human heart. It is God who puts life in proper perspective. He speaks to us in his Word about how to live with and for others and how to glorify him.
In the same prayer in which our Lord speaks to believers as being in but not of the world, he also speaks of “eternal life” as a gift and as a right apprehension of God through Christ.
The esoteric nature of this prayer is most enlightening, particularly when so many today are placing believers and unbelievers in the same category: “I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine” (John 17:9).
And then we read this remarkable and deeply significant statement, “I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (v. 14).
Were the disciples to rest in their assurance of eternal life and from then on merely wait for their translation into the heavenly Kingdom? Far from it. They had a message to proclaim, a work to do. Their lives would not be easy. They would be rejected as he had been rejected. They were to be witnesses because they had been with him from the beginning. Some hearers would believe the message; many others would reject it.
The life of the believer is that of a messenger with a message. Because he lives in an unbelieving world, one that crucified the Lord of glory and would crucify him again if he were here today in the flesh, the Christian must expect hostility toward himself and toward the Gospel he lives and preaches. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18, 19).
The Christian’s reaction to hostility must be one of love. For this our Lord has set the perfect example. Paul speaks to the problem: “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to every one, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:24).
As a citizen of heaven, the Christian lives in enemy territory. He is involved in deadly warfare. He is up against, not a physical enemy, but “the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil” (Eph. 6:12b, Phillips). In his own strength and with his own resources he is helpless.
But the battle is not lost. God has provided his own with an armor against which Satan’s wiles are useless. He has provided the one offensive weapon against which Satan can never stand, “the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Where so many of us fail as heavenly citizens is in our attempt to fight with carnal weapons—criticism, invective, worldly wisdom, and a host of other things that are of the flesh, and not of the Spirit.
The Apostle Paul has put our citizenship and inevitable warfare in perfect perspective with his words in Second Corinthians 10:3, 4—“Though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”
