Monday, June 13, 2011

A Tale of Two Kingdoms

Leviticus 19:33  Don't mistreat any foreigners who live in your land.  Instead, treat them as well as you treat citizens and love them as much as you love yourself. Remember, you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. 

So often we forget the simple lessons of God's Word, and get caught up in our own idea of wisdom.  Such is the case with the way the people of Alabama, and our government, are treating illegal aliens.  In order to understand the application of this part of God's Law, we must first understand the principle of Two Kingdoms.

John 18:36  Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

The central message of Jesus was the Kingdom of God.  Many of his most famous parables begin with "The Kingdom of God is like..."  Yet, no matter how much he preached and taught about the Kingdom of God, he couldn't get people to let go of the kingdom of this world.  There's a reason that the kingdom of this world is so alluring, so powerful.  It is the kingdom of Satan himself.

1 John 5:19  We are certain that we come from God and that the rest of the world is under the power of the devil.

But Jesus came to rescue us from the "Prince of this World".  He came to show us a better Kingdom, a kingdom based on his Laws, not the laws of man.  As we live in this world, there will always be a tension between the Law of God and the law of man.

John 12:31  Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.  And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.

So, where does our allegiance lie?  When those Kingdoms collide, how does a believer respond to that?  We cannot expect the government to respond in a Christ-like manner, but shouldn't that be our response as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, citizens of his Kingdom?  He bought our citizenship with his own blood.  Why, then, do so many Christians put their allegiance in the law of man?

Leviticus 19:33  Don't mistreat any foreigners who live in your land.  Instead, treat them as well as you treat citizens and love them as much as you love yourself. Remember, you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

God's Kingdom knows no boundaries of citizenship or nation.  Lines drawn on the ground by men can never be the basis for how we respond to those in need.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we are taught that our neighbor is the person we find in need.  We are to love that person without regard to legal documentation.  They are to be treated just as we treat citizens.  Any other response is disobedience to God's Law.

If you, Christian, spend more time worrying about deporting illegal immigrants than you spend sharing the Gospel with immigrants, loving them as yourself, to which Kingdom do you belong?