Heavenly Citizenship

Where is your citizenship? Where do you belong? Does that sound like a silly question? Would you like to be a citizen of somewhere else? Are you a follower of Jesus? Do you know your citizenship is in heaven?

We may think it odd having citizenship in heaven. After all, we don’t physically live there. Living here on earth can make it difficult to think of our citizenship being anywhere other than here. Yet, we do have a citizenship in heaven.

In this world, we think of citizenship as the country where we live. Some of us may hold dual citizenships, meaning we are citizens of two countries. But we cannot live in two countries at the same time, even if we own a residence in each country. Perhaps, knowing it is physically impossible to be in two places at the same time, is why we have a hard time thinking about having a citizenship in heaven.

Much like having a citizenship in two countries, being in one at a time, we can be citizens of both heaven and earth. We can physically live on earth while holding citizenship in heaven. Our heavenly citizenship is a gift of God’s grace through His Son.

Not only do we have citizenship in heaven, but we know that our earthly bodies will be changed into a glorious body. I don’t know about you, but that is very encouraging for me. We all discover our earthly bodies breaking down over time. Parts wear out. Joints are replaced. Sometimes organs are replaced. When we are transformed to be like Jesus, we will no longer suffer the decaying we currently suffer.

I pray we all know we have a citizenship in heaven. I pray we remind ourselves of that citizenship regularly. I pray each one of us look forward to a glorious body like Christ’s. Know you are a citizen of heaven. Know you will have a glorious body. Know you will no longer suffer decay.

Philippians 3:20-21 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.