Citizenship is a hot topic today.  Our world population is around 8 billion people   and composed of 193 nations. Everyone wants to belong somewhere…to a nation, a family, a church, a choir, a team, or a school.  

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I’m grateful to be an American citizen “in the land of the free and the home of the brave.”  Citizenship, “the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen” provides part of our sense of belonging. Sadly, many nations in the world, governed by despots and dictators, offer their citizens little, if any, rights and privileges. When it comes to citizenship-and world travel-passports are ever more important! Our passports are one way to show we belong somewhere. Our passport opens doors all over the world. We have yet another passport and citizenship. It is eternal and permanently stamped 2,000 years ago with the sacrificial blood of Jesus on the tree.

Philippians 3:20 phrases it this way, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” When we encounter and embrace Jesus’ salvation as our Substitute Who paid the debt of our sin, we are adopted into His family. He bestows rights and privileges on us. In turn, by His spirit within us, we carry out the “duties of citizenship” to love Him and serve others.

Revelation 7: 15-17 describes our eternal country. “And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Billy Graham put it as only he could. “My home is in heaven. I’m just traveling through this world.”

Jesus IS our Passport. He’s our Passport to a more fulfilling life here on earth and the Passport to our eternal destination as a citizen of Heaven. Heaven is a country containing beauty and glories, rights and privileges that we cannot imagine!

In 1949, hymnist Ira F. Stanphill wrote “Mansion Over the Hilltop.” It describes the land we’ll live in forever when our Passport, Jesus, opens the gate. Here’s the chorus:

“I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop,

In that bright land where we’ll never grow old.

And some day yonder, we will nevermore wander,

But walk the streets that are purest gold.”

(Used with permission from Arlene Bridges Samuel. Photo Credit: Unsplash.)

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