We are walking in today: The Principle Of Dual Citizenship
Witness double throughout the Bible: H4932 mishneh--double, copy, second, repetition
Gen 43:12
And take double H4932 money in your hand; and the money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks, carry it again in your hand; peradventure it was an oversight:
The Torah Testifies.............................
Deu 15:18
It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double H4932 hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.
The prophets proclaim...............
Jer 16:18
And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; H4932 because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcases of their detestable and abominable things.
The writings bear witness.............
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Isa 61:7 For your shame ye shall have double; H4932 and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: H4932 everlasting joy shall be unto them.
Chapter 4 The Principle Of Dual Citizenship
Dr. Munroe has said, “there are over forty nations represented in my church in Nassau. It is a very international place. When we assemble for service, you can look around the big room and point out many of them. There is one family from the Philippines, another from Haiti, several people from Jamaica, a good number from various states in the United States, and some who have come to visit or live here that are from African countries. Each of these citizens of another government arrived in the Bahamas as a guest. Some of them intend to stay and seek Bahamian citizenship, exchanging it for the citizenship they started out with, while others will retain their original citizenship even as they adopt a new one. They will hold dual citizenship.
One of their members works in Florida, which isn’t very far away from the Bahamas. He told them, not long ago, “I just got my American citizenship.” When asked, if he was going to give up his Bahamian citizenship. “No!” he said. “I want the benefits of both countries. The Bahamas is not a poor country. If anything happens to my job in the States, I will come back.”
Another young man who visited that congregation is originally from Haiti and he got United States citizenship too. When asked if he kept his Haitian citizenship. “ Nope,” he smiled, “I’m an American now.” He saw no need to explain why he did not want to keep both citizenships.
In both cases, these men were following the promise of a better life. They moved to a country where the economy was stronger and opportunities for advancement were more numerous. In the new country, they had access to better healthcare and education for their children, and they even liked the climate. One man had left a fairly promising situation for an even more promising one, and the other man decided that his former situation did not have any promise at all. In fact, he no longer cared to be identified with his former country, so he stopped using his Haitian passport. He was not tempted to go back.
One of the pastors on staff was born in the United States. His mother is American and his father is Bahamian. So he was born into his American citizenship, but when he grew up he decided to also acquire Bahamian citizenship because of his father, and he moved to live there. He chose to carry dual citizenship because of his father. Now he has one leg in each country, and if something bad happens in one country, he can turn to the other one.
Throwing Down Your Anchor
Our citizenship should be a source of security, and we all need to be anchored somewhere. If you have no anchor, you drift wherever the current goes and you never achieve very much.
Remember: citizenship is not just a piece of paper. Your citizenship represents the entire country. After all, what do you call yourself as a citizen? You call yourself after the country, don’t you? I am a citizen of the United States, so I am a American. A citizen of the Bahamas is a Bahamian. A citizen of Nigeria is a Nigerian. Somebody from Bulgaria is a Bulgarian. In a way, you are not just a person anymore-you are a country!
This means that, as I mentioned in chapter 2, a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven could be called a “heavenling” or a “heavenian”, although we do not have a word for it. Two thousand years ago, when people asked Yahashua, “Where are you from?” His answer was that He came from Heaven. His point was that he was not from the Earth, but his citizenship was in another country, Heaven.
As He explained what He was talking about, people began to understand that He was inviting them to claim heavenly citizenship too. In fact, if they agreed to become “colonists,” as I described, they would obtain that heavenly citizenship automatically. At the same time, the only practical thing to do would be to retain their citizenship within a country or kingdom on Earth, because that is where they lived and worked and bore their children. So they would need to carry dual citizenship for the rest of their earthly lives.
That invitation still holds. You and I may be very clear in our minds about what country we belong to. But as we learn about the heavenly kingdom (and how it comes with our heavenly sonship, which we will learn more about later in this series), we too will carry dual citizenship- if not triple citizenship as in the case of my friends who already have two earthly citizenships to their name. You will adapt to overlapping cultures, but you will throw down your anchor in the place where you see the most promise.
Stop Making The Earth Your First Reference
A man named Paul was one of the most vocal expositors of the promises of the Kingdom of The Most High. In the years after the crucifixion of Yahusha, he explained the Kingdom of The Most High from one side of the Mediterranean Sea to the other. He wrote a letter to a group of believers in a region that is part of northern Greece today. He was trying to help them deal with persecution from their Roman rulers. The most helpful thing he could tell them was to remind them that they did not need to cope with the persecution by using the same reference points (in other words, conflicts between earthly citizenship rights), because in fact “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20).
Just like any earthly citizenship, heavenly citizenship is safeguarded. Even if your fellow citizens do not like you, they cannot strip it from you. Under the covering of your heavenly citizenship, you can avoid the contentiousness that comes from the Kingdom of darkness and you can steer clear of the bad advice that leads to dead-end solutions. When you learn to make a priority of your Kingdom citizenship, you find yourself in a win-win situation every time.
Dual citizenship is particularly powerful when it is both earthly and divine at the same time. The colonization effort of the Kingdom of The Most High is designed to bring Kingdom citizens the advantage of dual citizenship, because the earthly citizenship we start out with cannot protect us.
If only we could stop making our earthly citizenship our first reference! The Kingdom economy is never affected by anything, and all the power of Heaven is working in our favor. Your future is secure--and so is your present. None of it depends on what happens in this world, good or bad, only on what happens in Heaven. And in Heaven, everything is always okay.
From chapter 1, remember what I said about the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. The whole reason I wanted to bring up the idea of dual citizenship is because if you choose to become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, inevitably you will hold dual citizenship, whether or not you recognize the fact. All earthly citizenships, even the ones that supply excellent benefits and protections, are tainted by the kingdom of darkness. How could it be otherwise? But once you hold dual citizenship, you can give preference to the kingdom of light, and I guarantee that you will not regret it.
Christians are not in the Kingdom. I know that is a shocking statement. Members of other religions are not either. That is because most people who identify themselves as members of a Christian church have remained citizens of the same kingdom of darkness as the people around them. As such, they can only rise to the level of the jurisdiction under which they live. Their lifestyle does not change. They may attend meetings at a church, but they are not as “born again” as they may think they are. Just watch: you may catch them singing gospel songs on Sunday and cussing out people in traffic on Monday. That’s the way it goes.
They do not carry dual citizenship. They cannot give preference to a superior citizenship, because they do not know about it and they have not sought it out. They do not reflect the culture of light, freedom from conflict, and more.
Time To Pay Your Dues
Citizenship in the Kingdom immerses you in a culture, not a collection of rituals. That is hard to get across, because we were born into a collection of rituals. Every organized religion, even the simplest ones, have them. They have meetings and procedures and programs and customs and fees; it is all worked out. Every weekend the religious crank up their rituals. (Most of the Christians hold their meetings on Sundays. The Seventh-Day Adventists and the Jews hold theirs on Saturdays. The Muslims hold theirs on Fridays. Everybody’s got their special days.)
I mentioned in chapter 3 that you cannot “practice” citizenship. The word has a double meaning. Not only can you not practice and rehearse for citizenship, you cannot claim citizenship because you practice and perform various rituals. You can practice a performance or a religion, but never citizenship.
You cannot “do” a country like you do a ritual. Think about it. How many times are you a citizen? At what time of day? For how long? Only on the weekend for an hour? Only when you are using a certain language or eating certain foods?
You just are a citizen, aren’t you? If all the lights go out, you are still a citizen. If you do not pay your taxes or your tithes, you are still a citizen. You may be an irresponsible citizen, but you are still a citizen no matter where you go. And if you are a kingdom citizen in good standing with your king, you will go far.
The Kingdom Is Within You
I have found that the Bible explains everything better than I can explain it. Here is a good place to pull out a few lines to explain how the culture of Kingdom citizenship is completely different from any other culture:
Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of The Most High would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of The Most High does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of The Most High is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)
When they are talking about the Kingdom, people do not say, “There it is, over there!” They can’t say that because, like any citizenship, it is invisible, although it makes a noticeable difference in its citizens. It is incorporated inside of its citizens.
People can detect a certain essence of its presence, but it is almost like noticing the way the wind shakes a leaf. To a new citizen of the Kingdom, they may say, “Hey, what is different about you? You don’t go with us to the club anymore until the wee hours. You carry yourself differently. You even drive differently. What happened to you? They didn’t see anything happen. What can you say? “Uh, I had an encounter with another country and my priorities changed.” This Kingdom causes you to rearrange the furniture inside you, and you do not want to put it back the way it used to be. You become almost like a country within a country-a dual citizen, for a fact.
Every time I go to Los Angeles, I always ask my host to please take me to Chinatown, because I like Chinese food. You enter Chinatown through an amazing gate with a dragon on it. Once you drive through the gate, it is as though you are in China. The signs are all in Chinese. The people are Chinese. The conversation is conducted in Chinese. You would never go there for pizza, and you would not ask for directions to the nearest McDonald’s. When you go to Chinatown, you know what to expect, and you do not expect it to be the same as the rest of an American city outside the gate.
As a citizen of the Kingdom you should be distinctive in a similar way. You begin to forget how to speak the same language as the country that you used to be a part of. That is why your old friends know they can’t use dirty words around you anymore, or gossip or persuade you to tell a lie. Something has changed, and it is your citizenship. After a while, the people around you will learn what to expect.
When we become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have some learning and unlearning to do. We have been away from Home so long, we are earthlings and we picked up an earthly culture.
Another way of saying the words quoted above would be to say, ‘the kingdom of the Most High does not wear a sign.’ That’s the way it is with citizenship. How do people know that I am from the United States? How would someone know that you are from South Africa? If we are not wearing T-shirts that say so, how would you know?? Do we wear baseball caps with our national insignia on them and we don’t wear tags that announce, ‘American citizen.’ Citizenship is not easily observable. It can be hard to detect. Sometimes people can’t tell until you open your mouth, and a lot of times they can’t tell even from your language or your accent.
Getting the Culture Back
When we are away from home for a long time, living in another country, we pick up on the local culture. When we return home, people can figure out that we have been someplace else. We have picked up vocabulary that we did not used to have, and our daily routines have changed.
The same thing happens when you join the Army or any of the armed services. As long as you are a part of the armed forces, you are not considered a civilian. You must follow a stringent set of rules, even down to the kind of belt or shoes you wear. If your commanding officer says ‘jump’ you jump!! People who return to civilian life after a long stretch in the military sometimes have an adjustment problem. Outside, everything is different. Inside, they still feel like they are living within the gates of the military complex.
When we become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have some learning and unlearning to do. We have been away from Home so long we think we are earthlings and we have picked up an earthly culture. This is one of the biggest reasons Kingdom citizens need to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,'' for the sake of getting their own culture back, if for nothing else. Kingdom citizens need to re-educate themselves to think like heavenly citizens, because they have almost forgotten how.
As a matter of fact, a Kingdom citizen is one of Heaven’s reps, and he or she needs to represent that country every place. Kingdom citizens have been conferred upon them. The Son of the King explained it like this: I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me--Luke 22:29. As a Kingdom citizen, not only do you represent the culture, you carry the King’s authority with you. This makes a big difference in the way you conduct yourself. A whole country has been conferred upon you.
That means that when you go to work in the morning, Heaven comes with you. Heaven drives your car down the highway. How does Heaven act under pressure? If someone cuts you off in traffic, how does Heaven respond?
These are the real issues of citizenship, and you will deal with them everyday. Do you represent your country properly? You want to make sure that you have not been away from home for so long (so to speak) that you have picked up the local culture.
People who are from earth have their minds on earthly things. This is noted in Philippians 3:19. Their minds reflect the culture around them, and they can’t help it. They try to solve their problems from the perspective of the people and culture around them. They do not have the advantage of calling on the wisdom and stability and wealth of the Kingdom of Heaven. They do not even know that it is an option.
Representing your country is part of your corporate responsibility. People will be watching you, and because of you, they will decide what they think of the King and His Kingdom.
What Is Your Contingency Plan?
I told you about my friends that have dual citizenship. With dual citizenship, they have a contingency plan. If things do not work out in the country on one side of the ocean, they can move back to another country.
You do not want to live as if you have declared independence from Heaven. You want to hang onto dual citizenship, and you want to give preference to it regardless of what continent or island you may be living on. The currency of the Kingdom of Heaven can be used in any country on the face of the earth, because it is called love. In the educational system, you never stop learning. The social services system is so good it is beyond description.
I made my citizenship in the Kingdom my first choice a long time ago, and hope you do, too. I assure you that you will never find a better kind of citizenship anywhere. Keep meeting us for this series to find out how to become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, if you are not already one. Time to find out how to enjoy fully the privileges and advantages of that citizenship wherever you may go on this Earth!!
Shema Selah as we walk in this dual citizenship--let us remember our true home land is from heaven as we live here on the Earth! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkoMD25BL8M
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