As a lawful citizen of my country, I can travel the roads, shop at the supermarket, visit my friends, cook a meal, hold a job, and so on. Everything I do is lawful and no restrictions are imposed on me.
However, if I am not a citizen of this country, or if I have betrayed my country in any way, restrictions may be imposed. I could be condemned for traveling the roads, shopping at the supermarket, visiting my friends, cooking a meal or holding a job. I could be condemned for doing the same works that good citizens do.
Similarly, my citizenship of heaven is accounted lawful and right. Because I am ‘…no longer aliens in a foreign land, but fellow-citizens with God’s people, members of God’s household’ (Ephesians 2:19), my activities are lawful.
The law of my citizenship with the people of God is summed up in Genesis 1:26. By grace, I am lawfully made in the image of God and by grace God has lawfully gifted me a dominion. On that basis, I am a lawful citizen.
A true citizen’s good deeds are commendable but my false citizen’s good deeds become evil deeds and they condemn me. Why? Because if I am an imposter and not a citizen, then all my deeds are evil because I am evil.
My ‘good’ activities call down the condemnation of Christ. He says so.
‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my heavenly Father. When the day comes, many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and in your name perform many miracles?” Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Out of my sight, your deeds are evil!”‘ (Matthew 7:21-23 )
There is only one work that measures and declares my loyalty. ‘This is the work that God requires: to believe on the one whom he has sent.’ (John 6:29).
Believing in the One God sent makes me a proper, lawful citizen and then all my works are proper and lawful So – see you at the supermarket?
Elizabeth Price
Team writer with Just a Minute