Dual Citizenship

Bear with me on this post, it is long and rather wordy but I would love to hear your thoughts, additions, or even different points of view. These ramblings came out of where I am in life right now and the things I see around me. It's as much a challenge to myself as it is to anyone else.

I'm sure I'll return to some lighter fare in the future but for now you get deep and introspective kpinion.


What does it mean for a Christian today to be in the world but not of the world? Can you exist in the Christian sphere without giving up your place in this world? Can we be dual citizens?

It is a biblical fact that the world is not going to get better. The Bible is pretty clear on the outcome of the world – destruction. Not just destruction but self destruction. Our world is suffering from the cancer of sin, and it is eating away at our world. This is fact, this is the future.

So what are Christians supposed to do? Do we run and hide waiting for the second coming? Do we form our own safe communities, our little places of peace and goodness where we protect ourselves from the evils and horrors of a sinful world? Is this what we are called to do in these last days? At Christ’s death and resurrection a countdown began leading up to His return. These are the last days and they have been occurring for the last two thousand years. Since the days of Adam and Eve, this world has been infected with this cancer of sin.

Today is no different from yesterday, it is just maybe more apparent. So many people talk of the days we are in now, the sin that runs so rampant. Sin has always been here, it has lurked in the shadows, deceived hearts, and caused so many to suffer. Sin is by nature constant on this side of heaven. Are we seeing it more openly now? Yes. Is it any more powerful? I don’t think so. What once was hidden is now shown. What once was secret is now known. Study ancient Rome and you will probably be surprised by how openly men and women lived in sin. The sins that we are surprised to see practiced and accepted so openly are the same sins the church tried to combat then. Sin doesn’t change, the people’s weakness to it does. So we’re back to the question how is a Christian to live in the face of sin? What are we to do? Does the Bible give any instruction? You bet it does and the commands are simple. Love, stand, and live.

Love.
Our salvation is based on love. “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son.” This is our basis for love. God loved, and we are to do so also. God loved the world, the entire world. Not just the good people, not even just those who loved him back. God loved all, everyone single person put on this earth. Did he love with an expectation of love back? Did he love knowing that we would return that love? He knew who would respond to His love, he knew who would accept it, but he loved all anyways. He loved the world so much that it was a sacrificial love, a love that moved Him to act on our behalf.

Stand.
Don’t sit on the sidelines letting the world pass you by. An ineffective witness is just as bad as a false one. To know the truth and keep your mouth shut is the same as speaking against it. God said “GO” and so we shall. Stand up for those things that are wrong. Stand firm in your beliefs, convictions, and faith. That’s the difference between being in the world and of it. Don’t conform to what this world has to offer and expects. Christians should look different. If you don’t then there is a problem. Christ never compromised his position; he never became part of the world. He stood firm. Others knew where he stood, what he stood for, and that he wouldn’t change.

Live.
This command goes along with standing. Live your life. The question can be asked why God doesn’t just sweep us into heaven at the moment of our conversion. There must be a reason he leaves us on this earth, why our lives here are important to Him. Our lives are our witness. How we live speaks to why we live. Christ came to this earth as a man. God approached his children on their own turf with a familiar face. To me, one of the most approachable things about Christ is that he lived. He experienced humanity: temptations, hardships, joys, family, friends, work, and life. We are also ambassadors to this world. How we navigate our lives speaks of who we are and who we call Lord. Our lives should be a representation of the relationship that we count most dear. It should be a reflection of God and therefore tell others of whom we serve. We are to live as Christ lived among the very people that He desires to reach.

What does this look like?
Who did Christ approach? Who did he interact with? Christ went to the people. He didn’t see them by level or title but people on the same footing. All were lost, all were sinful, and all were in need of Him. Christ spent time with the poor, the desolate, the sick, the shameful, the proud, the rich, and the powerful. He went to all because all needed Him.

Look how Christ approached the adulterous woman. Did he condemn her outright, did he call her on her sin, did he point and tell her how wrong she was? No. He approached her with the one thing His Father sent him in, love. Oh she was wrong. There was no doubt in that. And she probably knew she was wrong, as we all do deep in our hearts when confronted with sin. Christ knew there would be time for conviction later, for you cannot be convicted until you know what is right. So Christ, in direct opposition to the Pharisees approached her not with a pointing finger and condemnation but with acceptance, forgiveness, and love. Think through how the Christian world, the church, approaches people like the adulteress today. Do we go to them with love, with acceptance, knowing we are on equal footing before God? It is good to remember that save Christ, the preacher and the prostitute are the same in the eyes of God.

Witnessing isn’t just what you do when you go door to door in your neighborhood; it isn’t just the mission trip to another country. Witnessing is what you do in your life, day in and day out. It is your reaction to other people, your treatment of those around you, how you choose to live. Witnessing is definitely not you, the high and mighty Christian graciously going to those who are lost and stuck in their sin and providing them with all your wisdom. It is you, a sinner, sentenced to death for unrighteousness, imperfection, looking to your left and right and telling the guy next to you, who is in the same place you are, that you were shown the way out and offering to show them too.

What doesn’t it look like?
Why does the church have such a bad rap in the world? What are we doing wrong? Take a look at the Pharisees and you’ll get a good answer. Look at what they did with the adulteress woman. They drug her out into public to shame her. They tried to make a political statement out of her sin while completely ignoring their own. They went to her, not with love or forgiveness, but with judgment and condemnation. There was no lost soul, hurting heart, or redeemable person, there was only sin. It was wrong, and they were ready to determine the punishment. The ironic thing is they brought her to the only person who had the right to determine guilt and punishment. But that’s another story.

So how did the Pharisees view other people, specifically non-Pharisees? Not surprisingly, with arrogance and a view of superiority. Sound familiar to anyone? I know a few non-Christians who have felt like some (not all) Christians have viewed them in that way. It’s kind of like the kid who knows all the answers and looks at everyone else as below them in knowledge. The funny thing is that that kid often doesn’t remember there was a time when he didn’t know anything at all. How quickly one forgets his past when his present allows him to have superiority over others.

Back to the Pharisees, there is a story in scripture of a Pharisee who goes to worship and looks around and thanks God for not make him like the other people around him. Sound familiar again? Look around and see how some Christians treat other people. Lord, thanks for not making me an adulterer, thanks for not making me a drug user, thanks for not making me a murderer. Do you think they are really thanking God from saving them from these heartaches, these sins in their life or do you think they are thanking God (and themselves mostly) for allowing them to be better than these other people. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t thank God daily for protecting us from certain sins. I am so thankful that God has guarded me from committing so many sins that I know I am not only capable of doing, but my flesh desires. I wish I could give even a little bit of congratulations to my amazing will power but that will power has failed me so many times before and I have fallen into so many sins that it is only by the grace of God that I can claim any victory over any sin. For some reason, some Christians seem to think that with salvation comes elevation.

This brings us back to the original question, how are we to live? Well looking at the Pharisees again, I am pretty sure they weren’t out among the people all that much. In the Bible you usually see them traveling in packs, kind of like a Pharisee gang. Safety in numbers, right? If not safety at least you have someone who will back you up and agree with you. People naturally want to be around others that are like them. They want the comfort of knowing that their crowd believes like they do. This isn’t all bad. Christ traveled with his disciples. He had scores of people who would travel with him, want to be around him, and all had a common belief system. The Bible tells us to continue to meet together, to form a body of believers.

The one thing the Bible doesn’t say is to take ourselves out of the world, to make our own little society that is safe from all the bad in the world. To make an elitist society that is just that, elite. But that is what so many Christians today seem to be doing. I’ve heard so many reasons: this world is just becoming horrible, we can’t believe what is out there in the world, it was never this bad when we or our parents were growing up. So we pull away, we create a safe place, away from all the sin out there in the world. All in the name of protecting ourselves from the world. But the question you have to ask is, does this sound like being in the world? The truth is that the body of Christ is not expanded by inbreeding.

The Bible talks about putting on the full armor of God. My question is what good is armor if you leave it in the closet? Putting on armor when you’re not going into battle is pretty useless. I have a feeling that if when Paul was describing our spiritual armor he was intending it to take a beating. Think of the football player who stands on the sidelines and doesn’t get his uniform dirty. He wasn’t in the game which was evident by his uniform. If our armor doesn’t bear the marks of battle then we aren’t effective warriors.

Where does this leave us?
Once again we come back to the truth, that without Christ we are all the same before the eyes of God. It should also be noted that we didn’t discover Christ. We weren’t the smartest or the most persistent and therefore we found the answers. We didn’t work the hardest to obtain some great reward. In fact we did absolutely nothing to deserve it and everything to cause us to not be chosen. His salvation was given to us and is not something that we were smart enough to grasp, good enough to earn. It was and is an open invitation to all. Yes, there are some who will not accept salvation, some who will turn it down flat, but we don’t know who these people are. Thank goodness God didn’t give us the ability to see the future salvation of others. How our arrogance and judgment would reign. The problem is that we have no idea who may be a future brother or sister in Christ and yet some people treat those they don’t think are or will be with contempt. We’ve reasoned in our mind that we are in some way exalted and above all those other people who don’t have the right answer.

So back to the question: how? We stand on Christ. We emulate his life. We let the Holy Spirit direct us with His fruit. We daily submit ourselves under the authority and grace of our Father. We stand knowing that God has placed us here on this earth to serve not our purposes but His. We diligently come before Him, seeking that He uses us to the glory of his kingdom. We trust that He has placed us where He wants to use us.