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June 2010
Shalom and Blessings in Messiah’s love. As the summer begins, we want to see it biblically, not as a season to laying back and getting lax, but as the season of harvest. With great things ahead, we need to be all the more people of the harvest, unafraid and bold to share the word of salvation to all, and each of us fulfilling his or her part in the ministry of the Great Commission.
In Philippians 3 it says, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” What does that mean? When people come to a new country, as in the people who came to America at the turn of the last century, their house or their neighborhood became a little enclave of the old country. This would be manifest in all sorts of ways—in the cooking, the smells, the language, the songs, and in the culture. When I would visit my grandmother’s house in Brooklyn, it was like going to the Jewish part of Russia. It was filled with elderly Jewish people speaking Russian who came from Czarist Russia at the beginning of the century. There were pictures of Russian fields, vessels from the Old World, Russian Jewish food, such as blintzes and borscht, just like in Russia. Beyond my grandmother’s neighborhood, if you walked to other neighborhoods, you would enter an enclave of Italy. There was the smell of Italian food and the look of Italian culture. Beyond that enclave was an enclave of Ireland, and an enclave of China could also be found. They were like little colonies of the original country in which the citizens lived. This is all linked to the mystery of our heavenly citizenship.
We are living on earth, but the Scripture tells us that our citizenship is not of earth, but heaven. The Jewish people have been scattered all over the world for 2,000 years in every continent and almost every nation. Yet, in those nations they maintained little enclaves of Israel. In their synagogues was a reconstruction of life in Israel, its language, its holy days, its rituals. We who are born again are citizens of a heavenly Israel.
The word used in the Bible referring to our citizenship is one that would often refer to an enclave, a colony of a nation living outside its homeland, its citizens living as though they were still in that country. It is just like the Jewish people did in Brooklyn and as other people have done all around the world. We are to live on earth as if we were part of a colony of heaven on language, a heavenly way of living, a heavenly outlook, and we partake of heavenly food. Now this is the challenge.
In the same way that people who came to new countries fought to maintain their identity, we all the more so, must fight to maintain our heavenly identity in the world. Thus, we must stay connected to our homeland, Heaven. It is crucial that we renew ourselves in the ways of heaven continuously through daily prayer, daily time in the Word, daily being touched by God, and by daily reminding ourselves of who we are. As citizens of heaven, we are not bound by or subject to the ways of earth. We are no longer under the law of sin and death, but the law of life. Messiah said, “You are in the world, but you are not of the world.” If we live in the Spirit, we will live free from the laws of a world that is passing away. Here is the challenge, my friend. Learn what it means to be a citizen of heaven. This month live as someone who is not bound by their circumstances. You are only in your circumstance, but not of it, only in a problem, but not of it. Whatever situation you are in do not be defined by it.
Remember, you are a citizen of another land—heaven. You have now been given a heavenly passport—a heavenly identity card. Live like it, and wherever you go, people will taste heaven, smell heaven, and see heaven displayed in you because this is what the Bible says you and I are. We all are together citizens of heaven. May the Lord greatly bless you, beloved child of God, as you live together with Him in the heavenly places!
P.S. The Lord has blessed us with a large tent, pray for the Holy Spirit to touch all of us – to ignite and anoint us to spread the Gospel and invite in, as never before. P.S. Pray for America & its direction as a nation - For the peace of Jerusalem (Israel and the pressure it’s under) - The Gospel to go forth – For us to fulfill the Lord’s calling in the days ahead.
Leadership Team Meeting: Monday night, June 14th @ 7:30 PM. The Leadership Team Meetings are a vitally important and very strengthening for all who are part of a leadership team, ministering in and leading Beth Israel’s ministries. The Beth Israel Core Meeting-Monday night, Oct 4th @ 7:30 PM. Core Ministers Meetings are very powerful and special times to equip you and your calling – with worship and the Word – for all Commissioned Ministers (and open to BI Members coming into full ministry).
