Castle in the Sky

“Even though we have been transported from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light, as believers we are still citizens in need of help. We do not want to minimize the significance of our rescue from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God’s Son, but this deliverance is not the end of Christ’s work of salvation, it is the beginning. Once he has broken the dominion of darkness over us, he then begins to remove all the darkness within us so that we may be holy as he is holy.” War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles by Paul David Tripp


In shopping around for places to live, dominions to settle in we look at where exactly do we want to put our citizenship. The fact of the matter is we almost take more pride in our citizenship than we do a lot of our other possessions like our marriage, our family, our loyalty to a church and so forth.


In the ideal world we would pick Fantasy Island as the best place to be. Just in case you’re not quite as old as I am Fantasy Island was a TV show where people went to stay and all the wonderful things they wanted to happen in their lives did. Some of the things weren’t too pleasant at first but it always wound up working out well for everyone and they left happy.


We need to take pride in our citizenship of Heaven, its something we are to lay claim to right now before we even get there. Just because that is our choice to pick the kingdom of light over the dominion of darkness doesn’t mean life is all well instantly and it stays that way. Until the day we die we will always be citizens in need of help, it’s how we handle that need that is important. Once in awhile there can be power outages where it seems like everything has gone dark again but it hasn’t. It’s these moments that are used to lead us to the foot of the cross to dispel more darkness and replace it with light one spot at a time.


Yesterday when I found out my grandson’s dad was airlifted to a local hospital for emergency heart surgery I wondered in my heart, “Where does it all end?” Only a week ago I collapsed and wound up having an emergency MRI to check to see if my cancer was getting out of hand. Two weeks before that dad fell and broke a hip and ‘the week before that………’ Sorry, I was just teasing on the last phrase because that’s how it feels right now, always the “week before that!” Praise the Lord all three incidents turned out okay.


None of us are guaranteed a dark free zone to live in once we have accepted Christ into our lives. We will always need the help of Jesus to see us through. Each journey we take no matter how long or short, hard or easy, bright or dark should end at the foot of the cross. It is there where one patch of darkness at a time is whittled away by the light of Christ as we become more and more holy.


Praise the Lord for the light of Jesus, where there is no fear of dead batteries, power outages, or shortages. There’s enough light to go around for all, all who are willing to plug into it on a 24 hour 7 day week basis. Indeed a place not of fantasy and dreams but a destination of peace, happiness, love, and joy where we can proudly placed our citizenship.


Castle in the sky Heaven, thank God, we’re Heaven bound!

**I just thought of the fact that when we take pride in our citizenship we do all we can to contribute to where we are living. We need to contribute to the kingdom of the Light the same way. We can’t expect everyone else to do the work, pretty up the landscape, take care of the poor, feed the homeless, teach the youth, look after the elderly etc its all our jobs. We don’t get the pleasure of repenting and getting our citizenship card without taking it further into the holiness that should come from it down the journey of life with Jesus.

© 2012 Karen Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes