Acts 22:6 And it came to pass, that as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.
Citizenship in Heaven
I love to travel, and I love watching people in the airport. Any big airport has people from all corners of the earth going to every place imaginable. Even though I love the excitement of travel and the variety of people, I am thankful to be an American citizen. Citizenship frames so much of whom we see ourselves to be and the way we view the world. The entirety of Paul’s story in Acts 22 is about citizenship.
For instance, in verse 3, Paul says, “I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia.” He goes on to talk about his Jewish credentials. Paul was part of God’s special, precious, chosen people, the Jews, but that was not the primary citizenship that framed who Paul was and how he thought. In fact, many Jewish citizens, as noble as their heritage was, wanted to kill Paul because they believed he had betrayed that citizenship by trusting in Jesus as Christ. These people had rejected the Christ that God had sent.
Later on, the Romans were going to scourge Paul, and Paul claimed his Roman citizenship. In verse 27, it says, “Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea.” Paul’s citizenship was very important because it was what protected him from an unjust scourging by these Romans.
Citizenships on earth tend to frame our prejudices and our expectations of our rights. We can be thankful if the rights we enjoy are protected by the citizenship we possess. Paul definitely made use of that. But Paul’s life was not governed by his citizenship as a Jew or as a Roman; it was governed by a citizenship in Heaven.
His testimony is found in verse 6 where he says, “And it came to pass, that as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there was shown from heaven a great light round about me.” He came to grips with Jesus, God’s Messiah, who was sent to the whole world. The Lord Jesus told Paul that He had a plan for him to be a witness of what he had seen and heard.
A citizenship on earth frames our prejudices and rights, but a citizenship in Heaven frames our love of others and a surrender of self. What citizenship most frames you and fosters, animates, and energizes your actions today?