Living as a Citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven – Eph 2:1-10

Russ Ramsey

When you suffer hardship or fail again at that familiar sin, is the answer to the question “why?” what you really need? Do we struggle through this life to become smarter? No! I am convinced that the evidences of our spiritual poverty are given to stir in us a hunger for the coming Kingdom. To endeavor to live as a citizen of that Kingdom, and like and alien of this one!

When Job was suffering, his friend were asking “why?” but Job was asking “How Long?” and “Where are you, God?” What is attractive about the concept that every hardship or trial is intended to teach us a lesson? Why can we be so enamored by the question “Why?” What assumptions are we making about God when we believe every pain in our lives came from his hand to teach us a lesson?

What does it mean to live as a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven? Does it mean we just detach ourselves from everything in this world, as the eastern thinkers would say? No, because Christianity claims something to be true of you and I that is unlike any other religion in the world—that God uses his people as agents of redemption in this broken world to restore what is broken and damaged by the fall. How can I say this? Paul tells us in Eph 2:10 that we were created in Christ Jesus to do good works which have been prepared in advance for us to do.

The point is this, the realities of living in a broken and fallen world guarantee Jesus’ statement in John 16:33 “In this world you will have trouble.” He went on to say, “But take heart! I have overcome the world." We do not find our hope and comfort in making peace with this broken world, but in the promise that Jesus has overcome it, and that He seats His people with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a kingdom we struggle to have a taste for. But in this hunger, God works in our lives to awaken us to the wonder and beauty of His Kingdom—to give a longing for Home, though it is a home we have not yet seen.