WHEN I OPEN the pages of a newspaper or watch the news on the television here, on planet Earth where I live, I feel that I am sending terrible electric charges to my brain and my heart that drag them down them with sadness. I really do not know what channel I have to tune to see good news. Living in this world is a real challenge.
Something that happened when I was five years old has been engraved on my mind; it showed me the type of hostility we face every day. It happened one Sabbath after church service. When we got home, we opened the door and everything was in a complete mess! It was as if an earthquake had hit us: we had been robbed. Thieves had entered during our absence and done damage that left us with a bitter taste for a long time. This is the sad reality: while we are citizens of this world, we will continue to be exposed to all the negative things brought on by sin.
Alfredo Quiñones lived in a little town in Mexico before he became an American citizen. His poverty fed his desire to help his family, so he went to the United States with great effort and worked there while he studied. He finally achieved his goal: to be a neurosurgeon. For him, the American dream is being able to give back a little of what he has received, and he tries to do that every day. He has identified with the country that has given him a better life.
How about you? With what citizenship do you identify? Do you ever think about the heavenly homeland that is waiting for you? The difference between this world in which we live now and the other in which we will live later is enormous There «all is in perfect harmony, in perfect order and perfect bliss. Heaven is a home where sympathy is alive in every heart, expressed in every look. Love reigns there. There are no jarring elements, no discord or contentions or war of words…. No tempter is there, no possibility of wrong» (White, Last Day Events, ch. 20, pp. 296, 297).
This morning, we can feel part of the eternal kingdom; we can think, act, speak, and give thanks because we are citizens of a kingdom of peace.
«For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ» (Philippians 3:20).