Turning Consumers Into Citizens

Reading Jim Wallas' book On God's Side (what religion and politics hasn't learned about serving the common good). Saw Jim Wallas at Greenbelt last year, an inspirational speaker, who teaches with authenticity because he practices what he preaches...

In the book i came across this phrase: 'turning consumers into citizens'.
We live and breath in an acute consumer society - i'd be the first to confess to being brutally influenced by the need to spend, consume, spend, consume, spend, consume...and the contented feeling after buying the stuff. The albeit short-lived contented feeling.

So the vision of being transformed from a 'consumer' into a 'citizen' is a vision that I cling to with clutching hands that seem to be forever slipping...never seem to hold on to with much success.
I persistently refuse to be defined by the things I buy. I'm made in the image of the Creator. The free, all -Loving-Gracious Spirit who breathes Her love upon us, revealing to us that we have worth, we are valued for who we are and not for what we possess.

Refuse the consumer identity and take hold of our true identity of citizens - citizens of the Grace-filled Realm, citizens of the All-embracing, all-inclusive Grace Realm.