Some people aspire to a second home in the country – perhaps
a cottage in Cornwall or a gite in France – spending their time now in one
place, now in another. Christians live in 2 worlds at the same time, citizens
both of heaven and earth.
In Ephesians 2:6 Paul had talked about Christians as having
already been raised and already being seated in the heavenly realms even as we
live our mundane daily lives. The same thought appears in Ephesians 6 where we
find that we are engaged in a battle in the heavenly realms. But we do not
leave one realm at the end of the week for our weekend in a second home: we
stay both citizens of this world and of the heavenly realms at the same time.
This is a familiar passage and we may easily lose the sense
of strangeness in describing Christians as needing to dress like Roman
legionaries, putting on armour in readiness for war. Even stranger is the fact
that the armour and weapons are things like ‘truth’, ‘righteousness’,
‘salvation’, all of which are used elsewhere to describe Jesus himself. What it
shows is the seriousness and significance of Christian life. This is not
something we dabble in during our weekends or evenings away from the world of
work (or wherever we spend most of our time). There is a spiritual battle going
on whether we choose to engage in it or not but we can be reassured that the
weapons God gives us are enough for us to ‘be strong’ and ‘stand’.
Are you taking seriously the spiritual battle? Are you living
as a citizen of heaven even as you go about your daily life?
(member of the
congregation)