Passports are serious business.
If you’re traveling internationally, you better have one. And it better be valid.
I once flew with a group to Ghana, West Africa. Upon arrival, one team member couldn’t get in! They told him his passport was invalid because it was less than six months from expiring. The guy flew thousands of miles only to be turned around and sent back on the next flight to America.
Passports are serious business. Above all, they vouch for our citizenship. They speak to the rights and protection offered by our home country. But believers have a different passport. We read in Philippians 3:20,
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Catch that? Our citizenship is in heaven. Not here. Not now. Not on this broken planet where they scarcely recognize a heavenly passport.
We await a Savior, Jesus Christ, who will completely transform our lowly bodies. Which means we’re not waiting for gloom, doom, and death.
It’s not that we won’t hurt, bleed, or die. But we have something better to look forward to afterward. Perfection, beauty, peace, grace, Christ—that’s our future. What a Savior we have! What a future is ours!
Next time you’re tempted to go AWOL into a dark emotional corner, reach for your heavenly passport—-and pray this:
Thank you, Lord!
- My citizenship is in heaven!
- My home is there.
- My rights are there.
- My life is there.
- My hope is there.
- My affection is there.
- My rewards are there.
And best of all—my Savior is there!
Lord, let my life be consumed by heaven:
- Its vastness…
- Its eternity…
- Its people…
Let me be driven by heaven in my thinking, speaking, and doing. And let heaven be the fuel and force of my love for lost people.
Amen!
