Illustration results for citizenship
Free Memorial Day Resources
Sermons & Illustrations: Top SermonsTop Illustrations
Sermon & Worship Packages: Time to Remember
What would you be willing to do for $10,000,000-00? In their book, The Day America Told the Truth, James Patterson and Peter Kim reveal some shocking statistics about how far people in this country are willing to go for ten million.
Would abandon their entire family (25%)
Would abandon their church (25%)
Would become prostitutes for a week or more (23%)
Would give up their American citizenship (16%)
Would leave their spouses (16%)
Would withhold testimony and let a murderer go free (10%)
Would kill a stranger (7%)
Would put their children up for adoption (3%)
According to psychologist William Damon, respect for the parent who exercises proper authority leads to respect for legitimate social institutions and to respect for law. In his book The Moral Child, Damon writes, “The child’s respect for parental authority sets the direction for civilized participation in the social order when the child later begins assuming the rights and responsibilities of full citizenship.” Damon calls this respect “the single most important legacy that comes out of the child’s relations with the parent.”
Michael G. Moriarty, The Perfect 10: The Blessings of Following God’s Commandments in a Post Modern World, p. 112
A Thanks Offering For Heaven
Philippians 3:20 says, "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."
C.S. Lewis said, "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next."
There are many things about heaven that Christians can thank the Lord about. While living on this earth they have to suffer the consequences of sin just as Job came to know the sufferings of this world. He lost children, possessions and knew bad health. Knowing that at the end of his life something wonderful would take place, he said, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes... How my heart yearns within me!"(Job 19:25-27)
The children of God may very well be afflicted with disease, or loss of property. They may be forsaken by their friends as Job was. However, there is going to be a day when their body will be resurrected and they will have a physical body that is healthy, not subjected to sickness, pain or death or overcome by sin. Christians can praise God, for in heaven there is going to be a perfect city where there is no crime, no homeless, no unemployment, no pollution, no corruption in city councils or government. Heaven is victorious with no civil unrest, no terrorism and no more wars. There will be fairness, truth and goodness, and God's holiness will reign. Everyone will be upright and honest.
John Newton wrote, "When I get to heaven, I shall see three wonders there: The first wonder will be to see many people there whom I did not expect to see; the second wonder will be to miss many people whom I did expect to see; the third and greatest of all will be to find myself there"
Choose Christ, Choose Heaven!
A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE
America is a great place to live. Thousands of people reach its borders everyday hoping to live the American Dream.
The Chrisian Science Monitor recently reported a poll that asked the question "If it couldn’t be US, whose citizenship would you want?"
Americans, if forced to choose a country other than the US, would most prefer to be citizens of neighboring Canada, according to results of a new opinion poll. The survey of 2,142 adults was conducted May 23-29 via the Internet by Rochester, N.Y.-based research firm Harris Interactive. The countries polling highest, and the percentage of respondents who picked each are as follows:
1. Canada 28%
2. Australia 23%
3. Britain 9%
4. Italy 3%
(tie) Ireland 3%
(tie) France 3%
7. Germany 2%
(tie) Spain 2%
9. Mexico 1%
(tie) Japan 1%
But whose country, whose kingdom would really ...
One way baptism becomes a source of division, is when preachers emphasize it so much that they neglect the condition of the heart. It leads to people being baptized for the wrong reasons.
{Video Clip: My Big Fat Greek Wedding - Start Chp.10:50:10 - End: Chp.10:52:27 = 2:17}
Now being baptized, dunked in water, no more grants you citizenship in heaven than it actually changed Ian biologically into Greek. And we don’t oil you up or dunk you three times and we certainly don’t want you to be baptized just to get married or make someone else happy. Baptism needs to be your submission to what Jesus has asked of you. It is your declaration that you believe that only Jesus saves you.
Let’s take a look at society’s honest view of the early church by reviewing this letter from antiquity:
For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by
country, or by speech, or by dress. For they do not dwell in cities of their own, or use a different language, or practice a peculiar life. This knowledge of theirs has not been proclaimed by the thought and effort of restless men; they are not champions of a human doctrine, as some men are. But while they dwell in Greek or barbarian cities according as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the land in clothing and food, and other matters of daily life, yet the condition of citizenship which they exhibit is wonderful and admittedly strange. They live in countries of their own, but simply as sojourners. They share the life of citizens, they endure the lot of foreigners. Every foreign land is to them a fatherland, and every fatherland a foreign land. They marry like the rest of the world. They breed children, but they do not discard their children as some do. They offer a common table but not a common bed. They exist in the flesh, but they live not after the flesh. They spend their existence upon earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, and in their own lives they surpass the laws. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown, and they are condemned. They are put to death, and they gain new life. They are poor, and make many rich. They lack everything, and in everything they abound. They are dishonored, and their dishonor becomes their glory. They are reviled, and are justified. They are abused, and they bless. They are insulted, and repay insult with honor. They do good, and are punished as evildoers; and in their punishment they rejoice as gaining new life therein. The Jews war against them as aliens, and the Greeks persecute them; and they that hate them can state no ground for their enmity.
In a word, what the soul is in the body, Christians are in the world. The soul is spread through all the members of the body, and Christians through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, but it is not of the body. Christians dwell in the world, but they are not of the world. (Letter to Diognetus, 5:1-17; 6:1-4)
At secondary school children are now taught citizenship; how should we behave towards one another and towards the world we live in. What does it mean to be a good citizen? On Sunday 12 November three 13 year old boys knocked on the door of our house.
One of them said, “I’m really very sorry. I’ve just broken a small window at the Church with my football.” Another one said, “We thought it was best to come and tell you rather than just go home and pretend we didn’t do it.” The first lad said, “I’ll be happy to pay for the damage.” I later had a telephone conversation with the mother of the boy who kicked the ball and I told her she can be very proud of her son, because he did exactly as he had been taught. He did the right thing!
Titus is asked to remind the Church to do what they have been taught; (3: 1-2) to do the right things!
Ikuko Toguri was born in Los Angeles on July 4, 1916 the daughter of Japanese immigrants. She went by the name Iva. Iva was a Girl Scout as a child, and she was raised as a Methodist. Iva graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in Zoology. She then worked in her parents’ shop. She loved her country enough to register to vote.
When she was 25 she sailed for Japan to visit an ailing relative and to possibly study medicine. Two Months later Iva applied to the U.S. Vice Consul to return to the U.S. for permanent residence. Her request didn’t come back before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. She was then declared an enemy alien by the U.S. Government.
The Japanese Government pressured her to renounce her U.S. citizenship but she never did. To make a living she took a position at Radio Tokyo. She worked in the news department and made $7 a month in 1943. With this she helped feed allied Prisoners of War (POW).
In November 1943, Allied prisoners of war forced to broadcast propaganda selected her to host a 20 minute program. She was one of a dozen woman selected to do these news programs. She was reassured by these allied prisoners of war that she was doing nothing wrong. Iva married but declined to take her husband’s citizenship choosing to keep her U.S. citizenship.
She was captured, with the help of the $250 reward offered by two news men, and held while the Military investigated her. She was released and no charges were placed against her. The U.S. Navy awarded her a certificate of appreciation because she actually helped moral with the music she played and everyone believed the print she was reading were lies anyway and did no harm. They were written by allied POW’s.
Forcibly separated from her husband, she was brought to San Francisco, on September 25, 1948, where the FBI charged her with the crime of treason for "adhering to, and giving aid and comfort to, the Imperial Government of Japan during World War II". During her trial she stated that she and some of her colleagues sabotaged Japanese war efforts. On the testimony of two newsmen on a very vague charge she was found guilty and sentenced to ...
Here is a copy of my birth certificate. [Show document.] My birth certificate indicates that I was born in Rochester, NY in 1955. It objectively testifies to me that that I am a citizen of the United States. I don’t need to ask myself, “Do I feel like a U.S. citizen?” My birth certificate tells me I am, regardless of how I feel. Feelings play no role in assurance of our earthly citizenship. And feelings also play no role in assurance of our heavenly citizenship. So don’t look inward and depend on your feelings to determine your spiritual status.
"To enter the country of old age is a new experience, different from what you supposed it to be. Nobody, man or woman, knows the country until he has lived in it and has taken out his citizenship papers."
Pastor's MediaVault
