Are you a citizen of Israel, or a Gentile foreigner?

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,” (Ephesians 2:19)

If you’re a Christian and you weren’t born Jewish, you’ve probably been told at some point that you’re a gentile. By birth, that is true. But you’re also a naturalized citizen of Spiritual Israel, aka the Kingdom of God. We have equal rights with the other spiritual heirs of Abraham, Issac and Jacob–while those with the physical bloodline are cut off from Israel if they’ve rejected Israel’s king (Jesus) and hence themselves renounced their citizenship.  We should of course still love, treat kindly and respectfully, and pray for the siblings who have disowned our eldest brother (Jesus) and deserted the family, but we do need to recognize the sad state of their relationship with Christ, the God of the bible, and hence also with us even as we long for their reconciliation.

We should be humble about it, as Paul says elsewhere. We’re also capable of being complete fools, renouncing our citizenship in Heaven, and disowning our spiritual family as well. But we are no longer gentiles, we are God’s adopted children, and adopted citizens of God’s nation, and God’s nation was always, is still, and always will be Israel. That’s why Christians from ancient times have felt a tie to the physical land both promised and given to our spiritual ancestors.

But our greatest promised land is the coming new heaven and new earth and the new Jerusalem Christ shall reign from.

Lord, we thank you for your finished work on the cross, reconciling your people to you and to each other. We thank you for adopting us and giving us an inheritance along side our brothers in the Kingdom. We pray for those who have departed from you and your household by rejecting the Firstborn, only begotten son, our eldest brother, Jesus. Reach out to the today, righteous father, with your loving hands and draw them (back) to the savior. Release our captive siblings from the chains of our enemies–and us where we are bound. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.