I’ve decided to spend some time in Ezra lately. I’m trying to catalyze some spiritual growth in my life and I thought that looking at God’s people, and their attempts to catalyze the rebuilding of the temple, would offer me some encouragement. God doesn’t disappoint, and by the fifth verse of the first chapter he was already speaking to me.
Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart God had moved—prepared to go up and build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem. –Ezra 1:5
After 70 years God’s people were finally released from their exile and free to go back home to Jerusalem. What they lamented had finally passed. What they longed for had finally come. Yet, apparently, not everyone’s hearts were moved to go back to Jerusalem. There were some who chose to remain in Babylon; they didn’t want to go back home. 70 years is a long time and maybe some of the Hebrews born in Babylon didn’t want to go back to Jerusalem; Babylon was their home and that is where they were going to stay. Perhaps they lost their true identity and forgot they were citizens of a different kingdom.
God used this passage to challenge my own life and my own citizenship. I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God; Jesus’ life, death and resurrection allowed me to get in. Yet I don’t always live as a citizen of the Kingdom; I very often find myself resembling the citizens of this world.
Being a citizen of the Kingdom doesn’t mean that I’m simply waiting to leave this place to fly away to my true home. As a citizen of the Kingdom, I should make this place, this earth more like my true home. As a citizen of the Kingdom I am called to carry its banner everywhere I go, spreading that Kingdom as far and deeply as I possibly can. When my life doesn’t reflect my true citizenship, I’m a poor ambassador. It’s my hope that my life will reflect my true citizenship so I can see, if only in part, God’s Kingdom come and his will done on earth as it is in heaven.
What does it mean for you to be a citizen of the Kingdom?
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