I started trying to write a really deep and cool post earlier today which I thought would totally come together this evening- a post about how becoming a Christian is like a making a big move from one country to another, and how it is not only like making a big move like that, but it is in reality making a huge move across a gargantuan gulf within your heart, from one sovereignty into another- and then I started trying to write about it tonight, and I got bogged down in a digression on altar calls, the Sinner’s Prayer, and the history of early American evangelical life. I got so off on trying to make an intro to this morning’s post that I couldn’t figure out how to sew the two pieces of the post together, and so I put them down.  It was tangled a mess of nice ideas that wouldn’t fit nicely into words, and my cool post for the evening got shelved .

Oh well.

I think what I wanted to try and get across was that so often in church life and church circles we make a huge deal about someone walking through the gateway into the kingdom of heaven by solemnly saying the Sinner’s Prayer (which we ought to, because that act is important), and we slap them on a back and praise God with them and give them a Bible and ask them to come to church with us, and then everyone goes home and the church closes, and it’s like the sojourner who said the prayer showed up at Ellis Island in New York from Cape Town, South Africa, went through customs with great ease, was thrown a spontaneous and joy-filled party, and then everyone closed up the immigration office, he’s led out to a ferry landing, an officer points at a big city across a strait and a distant approaching ferry, and he is told in foreign tongue, “Good luck.”  He has arrived and been admitted to a totally new and foreign country, he is welcome, and he is disoriented.

Thinking about this popular church practice today, I was mostly struck with the reminder that donning the life of believer means more than simply saying the Sinner’s Prayer or joining a church.

Becoming a follower of Jesus requires a relocation of the residence of your heart and mind. It requires relinquishing your old way of life for the new one God has for you. It requires moving out from your own life. It is like moving from one country to another- and not just from the U.S. to Canada. It’s like moving from one continent to another.

In actuality, a number of things should happen in our lives when we decide to enter Jesus’ kingdom.  In this decision, we choose to trade our old world view in for a new world view that is constructed around His kingdom.  We choose to trade old allegiances- to self and sin, to the pursuit of power, to the practice of pleasure- for new allegiances to the Father, His will, and His followers.  We choose to trade our old ambitions for His calling on our lives.

Making a move of this stature takes time, and requires huge adjustments in one’s life.  And God knows, it so much easier to make when people who live in your new homeland come out and help you to understand the new nation, and the topography of the terrain, and how best to find your way around within it.

The Bible says that when we become Christians, we are in the world, but we are no longer of the world. We are in the world, but we are not about the world.  We are no longer spiritual citizens of the world and its fallen systems and suggestions. We have become citizens of the Kingdom of God- under the sovereignty of Jesus Himself, who gave His very own life to win us our citizenry- and ambassadors to the unpersuaded.

Often in life, whenever we move from one place to another, we usually get some space and time to reset our lives- and this is a good thing.  However, as with life in our physical world, when we make the Big Move in our spiritual life, we have to move out of our old life and fully into the new one. If you or I haven’t traded in our worldliness, our materialism, our self-justification, or our pursuits of power for seeking Him and His will, we haven’t really made the move. We make the move when we say goodbye to our old self-made life and step squarely into the one He calls us to- which begins by our making the decision each day to live in and for Him. We make the move when we decide to live each day firmly grounded solely in His grace.

Heaven doesn’t permit dual citizenships.  God is ecstatically delighted to have us in His kingdom, and He invites us to explore it as we live with and through Him.  But He wants to know that we, as His citizens, in our beliefs and through our actions, are “all in” with Him.  After all, because of His grace, He also delights in making us His children as well.

Have you made the Big Move in your heart?  You know you have made the big move if your life’s long-term goals are ultimately about His ends, and your daily interests reflect a curiosity about what He wants to do in your life.  In short, if, with Him, you are “all in.”

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
~ I John 3:14