A Good Citizen

By Stephen Leonard

You are on a trajectory headed toward where your real citizenship lies, for Paul expressed that believers’ true citizenship is in heaven. (Philippians 3:29) But you do still have citizenship on earth before you reach heaven’s shores. 

Paul in Romans 13 basically instructs you in your citizenship responsibilities on earth, and you cannot deny that you have them. They are not to be ignored. Taxes may be onerous, but they should not be sluffed off. 

Next Tuesday is one of your great citizenship responsibilities, if you have not already taken advantage of “early voting.” Unless, you consciously have considered your options as a believer and determined that it is wrong for you to vote for any of the candidates, then you must fulfill your obligation in an election and vote. Normally, in any election, you have a choice that gives you a biblical rationale to vote for one of the candidates and for certain policies.

You are biblically correct to vote for the preservation of life. You are biblically encouraged to vote for the preservation of public safety and order, because these are why God ordains government in the first place. You are right to vote for candidates that believe in the preservation of the freedom of religion and speech. These are established by biblical principles. 

You are biblically directed to vote for those candidates that stand for God’s law as it pertains to society, the family, marriage and to the godly raising of children. You must listen carefully to the candidates and study their policies and their record in light of the Scriptures. 

Since you have been accorded the privilege of voting in a democracy, you must not ignore this privilege by not voting. Laziness, in this, is never the prerogative of the serious Christian. Voting has been made very easy, in person or by mail, as long as you, with your vote, prove who you say you are. 

The hardest part is the study of the candidates, and the issues, with God’s Word, open before you, and with an earnestness of prayer. Do not take this privilege and obligation lightly! Please, fulfill it, by God’s grace.

We Americans have been blessed by God for over two centuries to live in a free society where we are allowed to worship God openly without coercion or incarceration. America has certainly been blessed by God. 

But we are seeing the curtailing and denigration of those blessings and freedoms as principles deteriorate and are lost. We are in the stages of turning away from God as a nation and from His ways toward quickly increasing ungodliness. 

Christian persecution is taking place in many varieties of ways, from the courts to the government to individual actions. Christians are being persecuted for their faith and for taking a stand to defend their faith. 

God never promised you a rose garden as you stand firm in defense of the gospel. His promise is that those who overcome adversity will one day enter into the courts of heaven and receive the prize. 

Stand firm, then, in the midst of Satan’s onslaught. Always remember, “Greater is He that is in you, than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) Prove that you are ready to be a good citizen of heaven by being a good citizen of earth. 

Encouragement