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How do you know your a good citizen?

             It was August 24 410 CE. It was the day that the Army of the Goths sacked Rome. They burned and killed for 3 days and then left. For the first time in 1,000 years Rome was sacked. Impossible! How could this be?
Augustine came along during this time and wrote a book called the City of God. Augustine said that the reason why Christians were freaking out was because they had associated the Kingdom of God with the Kingdom of Rome. Augustine says that there is no eternal human city. There is only one city that cannot be broken, beaten, injured, burned or bombed and it is the City of God. Augustine says that if you are freaking out over what is happening to Rome then you are greatly confused. You have confused the City of God with the City of Rome.
If you stop there then you miss out. If you suggest that what really matters is some other city and not the city you live in then what you could conclude is that  Rome that bad wicked city. Who needs it anyway? Augustine says don’t forget Revelation 21. Heaven comes down to earth.  Not that we go out of the world and into some space place or skip across the clouds. Instead the City of God comes down to earth to restore, heal and renew the cities of the world.
So how do you know you are a citizen of the Kingdom of God? Augustine suggests that if you are a citizen of the Kingdom of God then you should be one of the very best citizens of this world. Augustine warns Christians about leaving the city to go out to set up a new city. Augustine suggests that if you leave the city to set up your own city then all you have done is set up another city of man. The City of God is not the good people next to the bad people. The city of God is the Spirit of God and the message of the kingdom changing the political community of this world which is built on self-interest and power and turning it more and more into a political community of God which is based on service and love for others. Not taking but giving. Not holding on to power but serving.
Some very moral and religious people could not handle Rome being attacked. Yet, Christians were able to hold things together while everyone else was freaking out. Why? Because Christians were not out to condemn the city but save the city. Love America yet don’t mistake it for the City of God. If you do you will not be what America needs most. The best way to love America is to recognize that it is not the City of God and recognize its short comings. Yet when you remember the City of God then you can love the city like nobody else.
Jonah 4:10 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?
Hebrews 13:12-14 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

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