Citizen is “A splendidly vivid account of what it means to follow Jesus today.”
When I was 6 years old I prayed a prayer with my mom in our living room after reading a book about hell and accepted Jesus into my heart.
Wow. What a statement. I grew up in a home with Christian parents. We were “Southern Baptist”. I went to church at least 3 times a week. We were the protestant equivalent to Catholic. Any time the doors opened we were there. I grew up in the understanding that the more I served God the more He was pleased with me.
Then I went to college. I prayed a prayer in my dorm room after hearing David Nassar speak about Jesus being the Lord of my life and I realized that while I had a head knowledge about God, nothing in my life pointed toward me really trusting Him as Lord. It was there on my dorm room floor that I believe I truly surrendered my life to Christ. I was at a Christian university, had grown up in the church, had Christian parents, and was a worship leader in my youth group, and I had never surrendered my life to Jesus.
After my epiphany, I had to relearn what it meant to follow Jesus. I was a “citizen of heaven”. My focus for life and shifted focus around Jesus and what His will was for my life. I had a renewed purpose and vision. From this time until today I have continually lived in the process of reevaluation. I want my life to be centralized around the person of Jesus and how He has called me to live.
Rob Peabody’s book CITIZEN
Citizen Book Description
For Rob Peabody, the young pastor at a mega-church in the south, the realization that his faith had little real connection with the world around him meant that something had to change. He redirected his church toward the poor on their doorstep and then took the larger step of moving to the UK to establish the missional fellowship ‘Awaken.’
In Citizen he outlines the Kingdom-centered identity that is given to followers of Jesus. It’s a wake-up call to the church in the West. Jesus’ death and resurrection initiates and invites people into a life of so much more than the status quo. God is re-building, re-newing, and re-creating that which is broken and marred by sin, and he is doing this – setting things right in the world – through Jesus. As citizens of the Kingdom, we have been saved and set apart for this work. We have a new allegiance, a changed identity, and a new mission as we seek to establish the rule of God on earth as it is in Heaven.
Links Related to Citizens
- Citizen Book Website: CitizenTheBook.com
- Awaken Movement: Citizen Book
- ChristianBook.com: Citizen Book
