Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Passport (07/25/05)
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TITLE: Heaven's Passport | Previous Challenge Entry
By Carol Adams
07/27/05 -
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I have never traveled abroad where a passport is needed, but somewhere in the future I will need my heavenly passport. My identity will tell the King of Kings I am His, bought by the price of His blood. I was an enemy of God and bathed in sin before I met my Lord and Savior. However, I now have been authorized to be transported to my heavenly home when I die. How wonderful! I leave this earthly world identified by my credentials of who I am, my picture, and my country; and I go to a grander domain again identified by a picture of who I am and the country in which I reside.
The picture tells my Heavenly Father that I am redeemed, justified, and free, a child of God, an heir and a fellow worker with God, transformed through metamorphosis. My development is much like the larva that enters the pupa stage and emerges a butterfly. We were dead in sin. We were the worm. After we came to Christ, we entered the pupa stage and became a totally new creation. We are no longer the worm, but a beautiful butterfly with the imprint of the three- in-one stamped on us. II Corinthians 5:17, 18 NIV, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
Redemption, the act of paying off the note which was my sin. A price had to be affixed and that was the blood of Christ. I was doomed to hell and Christ set me free. He bought my freedom by dying for me. He satisfied the debt, allowing me to become His child enjoying the benefits of His new family.
Justification declares me free of blame. I once was an enemy, but the moment I entered the pupa stage I became His. He pardoned me. He wiped my slate clean and pronounced me brand new! He, also, gave me His power and His words to walk in His life.
I think about the passport I have right now on this earth. What identifies me to my Savior? My
picture? Is it a picture of who I am before I came to Christ or is it a picture of who I am now?
My life has many scars and remembrances of who I used to be, but that does not mean I have to bear that image now. As His child, I hope my life shows who He is in me. Ephesians 4:32-5:2 NIV, tells me about that portrait - “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
My passport into heaven bears His image stamped on me through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:8-10 NIV, bears His reflection. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.” “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” [Philippians 3:20-21 NIV].
“…but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” [Luke 10:20b NIV]. Heaven’s passport has my name on it! Amen!
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