The Healing Word

Guest (Male): The Healing Word Ministry on One Place is brought to you by the generous donations of people like you. At any time during today's message, feel free to send a prayer request or make a donation using the links provided. Now, I pray you will be blessed as Pastor Jack Morris delivers a message from the Word of God that will encourage and strengthen your faith in Him.

Pastor Jack Morris: Friend, there's another day, a better day, a day when we'll all be healthy, strong, new bodies, young. It's going to be wonderful. Our citizenship is in heaven. We're looking for the coming of Jesus, but in the meantime, He's with us and He's causing us to remember who we are and who He is and what He has done. And we're going to continue to rejoice and celebrate and give praise to Him forever and forever. Can everybody say praise the Lord? Praise the Lord.

Guest (Male): The citizenship of a particular country can be a source of pride and identity for many. Still, those who are believers through faith in Jesus Christ are reconciled with God and have been adopted into His family as children and citizens of His kingdom. Pastor Jack Morris is here with an encouraging message about living a joyful life now and assurance of life everlasting in heaven.

Pastor Jack Morris: A citizen. What does it mean to be a citizen? Well, basically it means a person who is naturalized or by nature, a person that owes allegiance to a government and expects protection from that government. Well, we owe allegiance to the United States of America and we're going to expect care and protection from our citizenship here.

But we have a higher citizenship, and that citizenship is in heaven. Remember the scripture says the Lamb's Book of Life where your name is written. You're on the scroll of heaven. Yes, you have been redeemed. Jesus' blood was the currency that bought my soul and your soul and brought us into the kingdom of God. We're now citizens of heaven.

We have a dual citizenship: citizenship of America, USA; citizenship of heaven. You may remember the singer Lee Greenwood. He used to sing "I'm so proud to be an American." I don't hear that much anymore, but there was a time that that was being heard all over the place. Listen to this verse: "And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me. I'm glad to stand up next to you and defend her still today because there ain't no doubt I love this land. God bless the USA."

Come on, let's pray for our country. We're not going to stop right now and pray for it, but we're going to continue to pray. And I don't know that when Corinne and I have devotions that there's a day that goes by that we don't pray for our president and this country. This country needs the Lord. And we're thankful for churches and Bible-believing people all across this great land.

Oh, there's a lot of things and problems to be worked out. Oh, a lot. But there's a lot right with America also. And I'm thankful that I'm an American. But I'm also thankful, more thankful and more grateful, that I'm a citizen of heaven, that my name is there on the Lamb's Book of Life.

You see, we are aliens here. That means we're strangers. We're just passing through. So don't dig your roots so deep that you forget that you're going to leave it all behind someday. Career, money, family. Up there, family and you will be reunited and it'll be a great and glorious day when that day comes. And it's not very far off for any of us. If we lived 80 or 90, maybe a hundred, who knows?

But the time passes so very, very quickly. And if you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, today would be the day to give your heart to Him and to get your name written there in the Book of Life. You see, we pledge allegiance to the flag. We put our hand over our heart. I pledge allegiance.

But we also have an allegiance to our citizenship in heaven. And we have a pledge. Do you know what that pledge is? Jesus Christ is Lord. Can you say those words? "Jesus Christ is Lord." That means you have surrendered your life to Him. Remember you gave your heart to Him. That means your life, your breathing, your blood, all that there is of you, your intellect, your wishes, your desires, your ambitions, you've given them all to Him.

And so I put my hand over my heart and say Jesus Christ is Lord, King of kings and Lord of lords. I'm a citizen of heaven. Now, citizens have a particular lifestyle and so it is with our citizenship in heaven. We have a different life. Life has changed. We've been born again, have we not? Have we not been born again? Yes, we have. And so our behavior, our thinking, our ambitions, our desires have all changed. And He's changed it because He's changed us. He's our Redeemer, our Savior, and our Lord.

Now, those without Christ, they have a particular lifestyle. And we had that lifestyle at one time, very similar. But those who are in Christ now have a different lifestyle. Friend, and if you don't know that, then come to the Lord. Give your heart to the Lord Jesus and let Him change you and make you a brand-new person in Him. And He will do that.

Now, if you'll notice in verse 19. Let me read verse 19 to you. "Their destiny," meaning those people who are not saved or in Christ, "their destiny." Everybody has a destiny. Everybody. Let's make sure our destiny is the destiny that God wants us to have. But their destiny is destruction. Their god is their stomach. That means they're looking out for number one. Their feelings are predominant in their life. Their feelings are everything to them. They behave according to how they feel at the moment. That's what that means, their stomach.

And their glory is their shame. And then it goes on to say their mind is on earthly things. But look at verse 20. "Our citizenship." Now it talks about them and now it's going to talk about us. Our citizenship is in heaven. And we're looking for the Lord to come from heaven. And if He delays His coming and He takes us away, which one or the other is going to happen, we're going to stand before Him in that day. But look at their destiny, their god, their glory, their mind.

But ours is Jesus. Our citizenship is heaven. We have an abundant life down here and we're going to have life forever in heaven. Friend, I truly believe that everybody with all my heart I believe it, I know it to be a fact. God has put eternity in our hearts. The people out there, secularists, agnostics, atheists, or just unbelievers, they have a relationship with the world, the relationship that we one time had, but we gave that over to the Lord Jesus. We gave it up.

But everybody in the world has a little small voice in their heart that this life that we're living now surely is not all there is to living. There must be something after this life. Just yesterday I was driving up the street and I came across this man and his wife who were walking along. This man is a very young man. He has two boys that are now in their late teens. But he had a heart attack, a very serious heart attack.

I called and left a message on the phone. I'm a neighbor just a few doors down. I barely know them, but I told them I'm praying for them. Then I wrote a little letter and I took it up and I put it on his mailbox. Yesterday there he is out walking down the street. And I stopped the car and rejoiced with him at what God had done.

Friend, you have a Savior. Rejoice in Him. Be happy in Him. Let Him be celebrated by each of us. But in our hearts, there's eternity. There's that little small voice. Even though people will say "I don't know," like one neighbor I was talking to, he said, "Oh, I don't know. Has anybody ever come back and said there's life after death?" Yes, Jesus! He came back. And in my heart I know. In His heart, He also knows. We all know that there's an eternity out there, that there has to be something more than just here and now because everything is wasting away. We live with waste, we live with decay, we live with destruction.

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Pastor Jack Morris: Anthropology has told us that in every culture that they have studied—and they have studied thousands of cultures of the world—every culture has its own deity. Every culture believes that there is something after this life. Now, the Australian Aborigines, they believe that when they die, their spirit is going to go either to the sun or to the moon. But they believe in life after death. Nobody told them about it, but somehow inside their heart has told them and revealed it to them.

And then the Mexicans, the Polynesians, and the Peruvians, they believe in life after death. They believe that this world is temporary and that their spirit will either go to the sun or to the moon. Even the American Indian, the natural American, believes that when they die, they go to the happy hunting ground where they're going to hunt buffalo. And on and on I could go. Everybody inside, down deep, in that honest, transparent moment knows that there's something more that's coming. Something more.

There is a destiny and we choose that destiny. We have the choice. We say it's either heaven or we're lost in destruction in a place called hell. One or the other. We do the choosing. We do the choosing, not circumstances. You choose the person you are and I choose the person that I am.

I talked to my friend this past week in Pennsylvania. When I was a young boy, prior to teen and then during my early teen years before my mother and sister and I moved to Baltimore from western Pennsylvania, his name is Ken Koter. And Ken is watching now. He told me, he said, "Jack, I watch every sermon. I hear every sermon. I watch every streaming." Hi, Ken! I'm talking about you. He's watching right now.

And I said, "Ken, you told me a story some time ago. You and my first cousin Ronnie became fast friends. And you were talking one day and you, Ken, said to Ronnie, my cousin, 'We know that Jack is going to heaven,'" I guess he felt that way because I'm a preacher. But he said, "We know Jack's going to heaven, but I think you and I are going to go to the other place." And Ronnie spoke up emphatically and he says, "Not me. I'm going to heaven."

Well, Ronnie has since died and he was quite a few years younger than I am. But then when I talk to Ken—Ken and I used to pal around, we had paper routes together and we'd go to movies together. He was my best friend. He told me on the phone, he said, "Jack, I'm going to heaven too." Ken has had a serious surgery on his spine. He's crippled. He's still mobile. He can still move around, but he doesn't have the energy and the mobility that he had at one time. And he said that there's going to be a new body in heaven. And he said, "You know, Jack, I'm sort of looking forward to it."

Friend, are you looking forward to heaven? Well, you have the promise of heaven because Christ paid your price at Calvary on that old rugged cross that we just heard about just a few moments ago. We're going to have these lowly bodies changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. These lowly bodies.

Look at verse 20. "Our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await." Hey, we're on tiptoe jumping up and down. Hey, praise God, I'm going to die and go to heaven. Oh, I didn't get any amens on that. Everybody's talking about it, but nobody wants to go there right now. We eagerly await a Savior from there, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, listen to what he says, verse 21: "Who by the power that enables Him to bring everything under control will transform our lowly bodies so that our body will be like His glorious body." Hey, there's been a change already. We've been born again. But there's going to come some more changes. And friend, it's not that far off. It's not that far off. I'm looking forward to it just like my friend Ken. He's looking forward to that change and getting that new body.

Two weeks ago, one of my very best minister friends died. And his wife called me and told me that Malcolm—that's his first name—died. And I went to the obituary. He's now living—or they were living, she still is with her son and his wife in Greenville, South Carolina. And that's where Malcolm is now buried. But the funeral was this past Sunday, past Thursday, excuse me, this past Thursday. And I streamed the funeral.

And then there was a desire to write something. I was invited by that obituary to write something, to say something about Malcolm. And I tried. I tried to write, I just couldn't. And then I started thinking of Malcolm. Malcolm, you're alive. You're more alive now than you've ever been. And so I wrote to him like writing in the first person. And this is what I wrote in the obituary.

"I will miss you, Malcolm. Our friendship dates back to 1960 when we were students at Central Bible College and then we went on to New York University. And after graduate studies, we both became pastors, but we stayed in touch, visiting one another, dinners, telephoning. We had some great times together, ministering, sharing, laughing. Our wives were also great friends, having worked together at the denominational national headquarters. I will miss you, my friend and brother. But soon we will get it on—but soon we will get it on again in heaven. See you soon."

Friend, there's another day, a better day, a day when we'll all be healthy, strong, new bodies, young. It's going to be wonderful. But in the meantime, like one minister I was talking to some time ago, he told me that people, particularly pastors, should talk more about life here and a little less about life there because we have some living yet to do here. But my thoughts are if we're right up there, everything's going to be right down here because the Lord will be with us and help us and give guidance and direction to us.

Our citizenship is in heaven. We're looking for the coming of Jesus or we're looking for that new life after this life. But in the meantime, He's with us and He's causing us to remember who we are and who He is and what He has done. And we're going to continue to rejoice and celebrate and give praise to Him forever and forever. Can everybody say praise the Lord? Praise the Lord.

If you're not saved or you're streaming today and you do not have Jesus in your heart as your personal Lord and Savior, I'm going to invite you now to bow your heads. Either you know Him or you don't know Him. And I look, without permission, at one of our ushers in the back of the church. And he said, "Years ago, Pastor, you said something like this: 'If you die tonight, do you know of a surety that you'll go to heaven?'"

My cousin Ronnie, when Ken said, "You and I, Ronnie, are going to go to the other place. Jack's going to go to heaven." Ronnie said, "Not me. I'm going to heaven." And he went to heaven. But there's my brother back there. He said, "When you said those words, if you were to die tonight, do you know? Oh, I hope so, I guess so, maybe so. I've accepted Jesus. Are you living for Jesus? Do you have the love of Jesus in your heart? Do you love all people as Christ loves the world?"

Friend, either you've got Him and He's got you or you don't have Him and He doesn't have you. But you can have Him today and renew your faith in Him, coming to this altar, believing, confessing, and repenting, and saying, "No, God is not my stomach. I am not governed by my desires. I'm not up and down, in and out emotionally by how I get up in the morning and feel. Feelings don't govern me. Jesus governs me."

I pledge allegiance to Jesus. Jesus Christ is Lord. Meaning He's the boss of my life. He governs me. He cares for me. He protects me. He provides for me. I love Him. I can do no other. Praise God. Would you bow your heads with me, please?

First, friend, I'm going to pray for you. There are Christians here who have grown cold in their spirit and they have allowed, like the scripture says, their stomach, their life, their feelings to take over. Their feelings has become their Lord. They bow down and submit and project how they feel. Friend, don't live that way. You're a Christian. Give your life back to Jesus or tell the Lord, "I need you, Lord. I've drifted." He'll hear you in a moment of time.

And if you do not know Him, you've never accepted Him as Lord and Savior, come to Him today. Give your heart to Him. Ask Him to come into your life. He'll hear your prayer. He'll receive you now.

Father God, I first pray for Your church. Your church, the church that Jesus died to save, the church that Jesus said I will build my church. And He's not building a church that's governed by their stomach, their desires. He's building a church filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with the love of Jesus, the very love that He has for us and for all in the world.

God, help Your church. Help Your people. Bless Your people. Thank You for those that are here today and those who are streaming, coming to this holy table to receive from the Lord grace, mercy, peace, forgiveness. Yes, forgiveness. Thank You, Lord, for being the Lord and Savior that You are. And Father, I pray for those who do not know You, that they'll give their hearts to Jesus this morning. I pray for Your church. I pray for each of us. And I'm thankful that You're here, hearing and answering our prayers. What a wonderful, loving God that You are. I love You, Lord. Our citizenship is in heaven because of You.

Guest (Male): Being a citizen of heaven means living a life that reflects the values and character of the kingdom of God. This includes loving God and others, seeking justice and righteousness, living a life of integrity, and being a witness for Christ to those around us.

Here at The Healing Word, we continue to hear how God is using this ministry to encourage and strengthen His people. Katie recently wrote in and said, "I thank you for your messages and the weekly devotionals I receive every Monday morning. They are very uplifting and encouraging, especially in times like these. I will continue leaning on His promises and The Healing Word for strength in the journey."

Her words remind us why we do what we do. Every message, every prayer, every devotional is sent out with the hope that someone just like Katie will feel God's presence, find fresh strength, and be reminded that His promises never fail. If you're not already receiving our weekly devotional, we'd love to send it to you every Monday morning. It's free, it's inspirational, and it will help start your week with God's Word speaking directly to your heart. You can subscribe today at thehealingword.org.

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