Yesterday, Albert Turner served us well as he preached a sermon entitled “Our Heavenly Citizenship” from Philippians 3:17-21.  You can download or listen to the message here.  We were reminded that our citizenship is in heaven and our earthly lives must reflect our heavenly home.  We hope these questions will serve you as you seek to apply God’s word to your life.

1)  How does the reminder that this world is not your home affect how you think about your life here on earth?

2)  Paul exhorts us to emulate the heavenly-minded.  Who are the godly people in your life that you need to move from admiration to emulation?    What questions will you ask those you respect in order to learn from them and begin to emulate their way of life?

3)  Paul exhorts us to beware of the earthly-minded.  In what ways are you tempted to view those who don’t know the Lord wrongly?  Are you ever jealous of the ungodly?  How does an eternal perspective help you to see the world and ungodliness for what it is?

4) Alb told us that Christmas is the beginning of the story, but the story ends when God has brought us all home to Him because of Christ.  How does reflecting on heaven, your personal resurrection, eternity with the Lord, the absence of sin, and eternal life in the presence of the glory of God bring you hope in the midst of the troubles and trials of life today?

5)  What Scripture about the resurrection or heaven will you memorize this week?  What book about the resurrection or heaven will you read in 2010?

“…to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations–these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit–immortal horrors or everlasting splendours”   C.S. Lewis