A big price for citizenship

In Acts 22:28 a Roman centurion is terrified of what will happen to him because he arrested Paul, a Roman citizen. He asks Paul if he is a Roman citizen and when Paul says yes, the centurion stammers with worry. The centurion also marvels because he had to pay a big price for his citizenship. The centurion is further horrified to hear that Paul was born a citizen which makes his actions even more egregious. The centurion was on the brink of doing the unpardonable in Rome. He was about to assault a citizen without cause. The punishment for this was death. He had almost signed his own death warrant. Paul was shielded at that moment from punishment because of his citizenship. This is exactly the same protection we enjoy as citizens of Heaven.

Once we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, our citizenship is forever changed to Heaven. We become the protected people of God. We enjoy, or should enjoy, the fully capable protection of God's own promises. This may not be accepted or understood here in the natural but it is fully understood and respected by Satan and his minions. Once we declare and demand our rights as citizens of Heaven, Satan shrinks from his attacks and flees. We have this promise that if we resist the Devil, he will flee. Here's why. Flashing our credentials as citizen's of Heaven will send our enemy running away from us because the punishment for ignoring this law is swift and severe. Remember the herd of swine?

Matthew 8:28-33 tells the story of some demons who were terrified of being tortured before the appointed time. This tells us something veeeeeeeeeeery important. As frightening and terrifying our enemy can pretend to be, we know what frightens him! We know that he is terrified of the torture that awaits him. We also have some clues to our authority here. If the demons thought Jesus had the authority to send them to their eternal torture immediately, and Jesus has given US that same authority, then the demons that dare to attack us are in grave danger. When a demon fails in his attempt to get us to fall into sin and doubt, he doesn't just go back to the bench until his next at-bat. He doesn't get another shot at it. He gets one opportunity to cause us to fall and if he fails at it, he is banished. We can, in our authority in Christ, send a demon to his eternal damnation early! I find that very empowering!

If a demon is successful and gets his hooks into us, then he can abide in our life and wreak havoc until he is banished. Until he finds a soul that will tolerate his presence, he is swirling powerless in the spirit realm in constant danger of being banished to his eternal damnation immediately. This should be very empowering for us to realize. This should completely change our posture. We should not be flinching at every enemy attack, we should be returning fire!

If some demon dares to raise their hand against us or our kids, we should explode with righteous anger and send that imp to his damnation. Word will soon spread throughout the spirit world that we are not to be trifled with and we'll find ourselves dealing with fewer demons. Demons are cowardly, they will only attack the frightened and weak.

Now back to the matter of our citizenship. If some demon attempts to stretch us across the rack to torture us with poverty, lack, sickness, or anxiety, we need to remind him and ourselves that we are citizens of Heaven. We are protected by the Name of the Lord. This should be all that is necessary to make him stop. Just like in our example with the Roman centurion, when Paul simply said the words "I was born a citizen of Rome", his would-be torturers stepped back in fear. When we remind the assaulting demons that we have the power to send them to their eternal punishment right NOW, that should be all that is needed to send them yelping into the nearest herd of pigs. This is our right; we have this authority. We can put the devil on the run!

The Roman centurion in our story paid what he calls a big price for his citizenship. And as a citizen of Rome, he was doing his duty of punishing anyone who violates the laws of Rome. He paid the price of citizenship and was fulfilling his duty as a citizen. This is an important picture for us to study. No matter what price that centurion paid for his citizenship, it was far less than the price paid for our citizenship in Heaven. Notice also that Paul had authority that exceeded that of his captors because he was born a citizen. Our torturer did not buy his right to operate in this world, he stole it from Adam. Therefore, since we were born citizens of Heaven when we accepted Christ as our Savior, our authority to operate in this world is greater than his and he knows it.

Notice also that no matter how important the centurion's role was to Rome, our duty is far more important to God. A great price has been paid for our citizenship in Heaven. With this comes great authority that is recognized by our enemy. We are to exercise this authority. As long as we fail to recognize this authority and use it, our enemy will have freedoms he's not entitled to. He'll use those freedoms to steal, kill and destroy. Our duty as citizens of heaven is to exercise the authority bought for us to stop the enemy from torturing our citizens and breaking our laws. It is a dereliction of our duty to allow Satan so much freedom. Whenever we see his influence, it is incumbent on us to squash it and banish the offending spirit.

What is most remarkable about today's blog is that it is coming from me. I used to be the worst at poking fun at people for saying things like this. I used to do the most obnoxious impersonations of wild-eyed, polyester clad preachers saying things like this. I thank God for showing me mercy for my ignorance. I am now fully persuaded and humbly compliant with God's word in this matter. It is extremely important that we recognize and exercise the authority Christ bought for us. We will not be able to fulfill all the work that has been prepared for us to do if we don't exercise our authority. Enjoy your citizenship today. Exercise your rights as a citizen of Heaven and put the devil on the run.