We have rights. In the U.S.A our rights are more sacred than baseball and apple pie. Our constitution contains a bill of rights. The very core of what the founding fathers believed was based on the rights of the citizenry. I don’t know about you but I’m thankful and proud to be an American and to be able to take part in the rights the constitution guarantees me.

However, I often have to remind myself of my true citizenship. I sometimes forget that though I have rights as an American citizen, my duty as a citizen of God’s Kingdom may not always align with those rights.

“ Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Eph. 2:19

As an example, let’s consider the Apostle Paul and his missionary partner Silas as they preached in the city of Philippi in Acts 16. They encounter a woman there who was possessed by a “spirit of divination.” Some local men were making a lot money by her fortune telling, and after Paul (by the power of Christ) cast the spirit out these men arranged for the arrest of Paul and Silas.

They were beaten and thrown in to prison, and what follows is a beautiful story of the conversion of the jailor and his family. The next morning the magistrates sent word to release them secretly and Paul had a few choice words to say about the matter.

“ But Paul said to them, ‘They have beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed! Let them come themselves and get us out.’” Acts 16:37

Paul exercised his rights as a Roman citizen, but notice when he did it. He could have done this the day before and saved himself and Silas a beating. But for whatever reason he allowed their arrest and as a result a man and his family were led to Christ.

I don’t pretend to know the reasons Paul did what he did, but I do know that in some cases our rights as U.S. citizens may need to take a back-seat in favor of doing God’s will. It’s the difference between exercising our rights and being righteous.