Citizen of Heaven

I was re-thinking my title for this post, because it sounds too lofty and spiritual. Lol. I feared people might be turn off by that. But the truth is that, when we were born again, God took us out of the kingdom of darkness and put in His kingdom. His kingdom is heavenly and spiritual, so the title remains.
Satan has no more power over us. Oh he will try. He will whisper lies or remind us of our past life, but we must cling to the truth that we are now in God's kingdom.
We must actively pursue God so He teaches us what that should look like in our lives.
We must never forget where we are and whose we are. It will not automatically happen.
See, when we are born again, and God relocated us, we must now learn how to live in His kingdom. It is different rules, and different life. This means that all of my old life I must die to, stop living, and now live Christ way. I am a citizen of heaven. Hey!
BUT.....
We must have repented from sins and old life, confess our sins to God (not the priest)-by this we know that as God sees the sincere heart, He will rebirth us. And now, we deliberately learn how to go be a citizen of heaven.
It is more than going to go church, it is more than saying a few prayers, God sees the heart, and even acts like those can be done with a wrong motivated heart and God will not accept us.
I challenge you to become His disciple and accept His conditions to following Him in Matthew 16:24
"If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me."
Will you truely follow Him?

Christ in Me?

Another new thing that came into our lives when we repented and confess our sins and became born again is that:
2. Christ lives in us. But wait, I knew that. You knew that, right? We were told that Christ lives in our hearts. But what does that mean?
Christ did not change who He is when He came to live in us. He is the same Jesus who died for us and resurrected and ascended. He is the same Son of God who we say we live for, who we say we love,  who we say we believe in.
So why is it that a lot of the time our lives does not reflect that truth? Why is it that we seem to endlessly struggle to make that a reality in our lives. Then, sadly, we have come to the point of justifying this struggle. We say, "I am only human" or "Everyone makes mistakes" or "God understands, He made me and loves me".
All those statements are true. But, do we see Christ like that? When Christ came to live in us, He came in all of who He is. He didn't adjust to our imperfection.
Gal 2:20 says, 'I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.'
Our old life/self/nature died when Christ died on the cross. That same Christ lives in us when we were born again.
We shouldn't be struggling to live for God, because Christ in all His glory and victory lives in us, and He runs things. Well He supposed to. If we are still struggling,  then He is not in control.
Let us ask God to teach us to deny ourselves and follow Him. To learn what it means for the old me, my self, to have died with Him on the cross. May He open our eyes to see our new life in Him and that we allow Him to mold us and conform us so we live a life that reflects that He lives in us. Always. Not just sometimes. Not struggling, but in Christ complete victory.