Hey Clawson Family!

Song: 

Scripture:

Matthew 13:44-46 New Living Translation

Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl

44 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.

45 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. 46 When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!

Devotional:

The goal this week is to help us to understand the benefits of being a citizen of heaven, blessings and rewards for that. Hopefully understanding this will help us to focus on investing in the Kingdom that will last forever and not wasting it on things that will fade away. 

What is Dual Citizenship?

Dual citizenship, which is also called dual nationality, means holding citizenship of two countries, nations, or kingdoms at the same time. This means you can have citizenship through birth in one country and be naturalized in another. For instance, Pastor Caesar that is over our Mexico missions was born in Mexico and still is a citizen of Mexico, but is also a citizen of the USA, and has lived over here for a long time.

What are the benefits of having dual citizenship? 

Dual citizens can enjoy certain benefits, like living and working freely in two countries, the ability to choose the more advanced healthcare system, wider educational opportunities, owning property in both countries, and traveling between the countries with relative ease. 

The bible says in Romans 11 that we were grafted into the kingdom of God. When I made Jesus my King, I became a part of the family of God, and a citizen of Heaven giving me dual citizenship between the Kingdom of Heaven, and the kingdom of Earth.  

And both kingdoms have rules, make demands, and pull us in opposite directions.

One of these kingdoms is empowered by promises, and the other kingdom is full of disappointment. Something fun that I would encourage you to do, is to start in the book of Matthew read through the New Testament, and write down every promise that God has given to you as his child. And then align your life in such a way that you will live by the promises that he gives us. Just to see if his promises are true. 

You will soon discover that the earthly kingdom, the fallen kingdom of this world, is not able to keep its promises. And the leadership of that kingdom never keeps its promises either. Yet every promise in God‘s word is true and steadfast, just like the king himself. This revelation alone will help you understand which kingdom you should be investing your life in, and which Kingdom you should not.

But for most of us it is hard to make that switch in our mind, because the kingdom that we are living in, that we see, that we have to pay taxes in is this earthly kingdom. We try to find our success and happiness in this Kingdom by doing what this world rewards. We work to make money, so that we can buy stuff that will eventually fade away. We want people to like us, so we become like them, and like what they like, just to be accepted. If we are not happy, we will move heaven on earth to change things and rearrange our reality in our attempt to make us happy. Not realizing the source of all of this happiness lives in us. We are already accepted, loved, and liked by the king of Kings in the Lord of Lords. Unfortunately, this is how many believers live their lives on earth, chasing after money, toys, and things that will pass away in time.

Think about this, the truth is that we are only going to be on this earth for maybe 70 or 80 years. Some of us even much less than that, then we are going to die. We will leave everything behind to be destroyed, and the rest of our eternity is going to be spent in heaven. So why would I not focus more on my heavenly citizenship than my earthly one while living on earth? Why would I devote my life to something that I cannot take with me, when I could be working on the kingdom of Heaven and investing in things I can take with me.

I want to share with you a few thoughts I feel like God shared with me about the benefits of having citizenship in heaven, while living on earth from the parable of the treasure and the pearl in Matthew 13.

Both of these parables are running together and they have the same theme. He gives us the parable of the treasure chest and then to reaffirm what he is saying he gives us another comparison with the same theme, the pearls.

For years I interpreted these parables incorrectly. I thought what these parables were saying was that when we find or discover Jesus and his Kingdom it is very similar to us discovering a treasure in a field or finding choice pearls. When we discovered how valuable this Kingdom was in our lives, we would give up everything in our lives for the kingdom of Heaven.

But as I have been diving into these parables for the sake of teaching them to you, what I found was even though my interpretation of these parables was true and the Kingdom of heaven is so valuable in our lives and discovering Jesus is so valuable in our lives that we should give up our lives to follow him. 

What these parables are actually talking about is the fact that we are the treasure and the pearls in the parables. When God looks at us we are so valuable to him that he left Heaven to come and be our savior. He gave up his Kingdom to come down and be sacrificed in this broken Kingdom because we are that valuable to him.

Journal: 

In your journal today write down 3 promises that God has given to you as a citizen of heaven. Write down what the requirement is for you to do in order for God to fulfill that promise.

Training:

Lord Jesus, 

May the contours of your kingdom and the truth of our heavenly citizenship be revealed in our lives, transforming us even now on this earth into your distinct people.

 In Jesus Name, Amen.

Begin to be obedient to what God asks us to do and see as the promises he gives come to pass in your life!