Tag: Kingdom of God

WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?

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Forget the tweets and twitters. Never mind the election scandals. And fear not the terror that stalks by day or night. There is only one power and authority that is holding this earth and we its inhabitants together. That power is love. And love has a name. Jesus.

In Colossians 2:10 we read that Christ is the head over every power and authority and holds everything together. (Colossians 1:17)

No matter how it appears the Kingdom of God has arrived in fullness in Christ at his death and resurrection. It’s for all of us. It’s for you folks who even do not believe this. It’s not fake news. It has the highest reliability. It’s news that can be trusted. Listen we’ve had it, most of us, with the current news real or not. We need some good news and here it is. No matter who you are or what you have been or the doubts you have about the world or yourself you can know for certain that you are part of this Kingdom family that God has set up on this earth. God’s grace makes that possible and each step of faith brings us into his realm, where he and no other authority rule.

It’s not escapism. In fact living with Christ will place us solidly in the realm of love in this world. Heaven begins here. God’s influence is here.

Christ’s reign is not a dictatorial power but rather a strong disarming influence over the whole creation. It was love that held Jesus to the cross to remove the blindness of sin from the world so that more and more people would come under the sway of his heart changing love.

Even at this moment, in ways I don’t fully understand Christ is in the process of reconciling this world, this creation back to God. The towers of Babel are falling. Empires are tumbling. The stranded arks are finding dry land. The covenant that was made with Abraham is being fulfilled. Those who have sat in darkness are finally having light shine on them.

Death, terror and heartache abound but these are not the final words for this world. God won’t allow that for his beloved creation. Yes, suffering must be addressed but in the light of Christ not in a faithless void. No earthly power has the final say. No, the final words are from Jesus who tells us to fear not because the Father has given us the Kingdom. (Luke 12:32)

Five hundred years ago Martin Luther by the grace of God stood against the earthly powers to proclaim the realm and reality of Christ. He lived amidst danger, emperors, threats and plagues. But give a look to some of the words he wrote from his famous hymn, ‘A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD’.

‘And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us;
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly pow’rs, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth;
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.’

Mrs. Clinton’s Modern World

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“Now extreme views about women? We expect that from some terrorist groups. We expect that from people who don’t want to live in the modern world,’’ Clinton stated. “But it’s a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States, yet they espouse out-of-date and out-of-touch policies.

Hilary Clinton made these remarks about the Republican presidential candidates. ‘Modern world’. Hmmm. I want to live in the modern world but my sense of modern considers a different ‘reality’ from Mrs. Clinton’s. The modern world in which I live is the world of the Kingdom of God as revealed in the Scriptures. It is a world where every life matters to God who created these lives even as difficult a situation as some may find themselves in. Even though Mrs. Clinton accuses some candidates of being so wrong about not choosing abortion in cases of rape or incest I doubt that this ‘would be’ President is interested at all in protecting the lives of all the unborn in most any situation. I am not sure what kind of ‘modern’ world Mrs. Clinton envisions but it seems to be one that does not include babies within the womb.

I am not in favor of criminalizing abortion. But I believe that in the Kingdom of God modern world we as intelligent people should be doing everything possible to help families NOT to have to choose abortion. It is a barbaric Dark Age world where abortion is used as a tool of convenience for choices people make in their lives. And I am personally aware of one situation where a young woman who was raped and still carried her child to term. She did this with the help of many loving people. And her little girl has a good life.

The Kingdom of God is about living a ‘good’ life, something the people of God need to encourage even in the hardest situations. We live by the Book that says God works all things to good for those who are in love with God and I suspect for lots of people who don’t even trust God.

Calling Republicans ‘terrorists’? Well, I guess that goes with the political territory. That’s modern world language for you. And it is most likely fodder for the news cattle.

I am sure that much of what I believe would be considered by Mrs. Clinton as ‘out of touch’. Out of touch with what, I don’t know. But I am more concerned to be ‘in touch’ with the reality of God’s kingdom. I want to search out God in all these matters and I want to do God’s will as best I can discern it. I’m not sure I will find it in all this political ballyhooing, but hey, you never know where God’s graceful presence may surprise us.

Just Good Enough

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Luke 13:24 “Exert every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.

In high school I had grades that were just good enough to make the ‘honor society’, but never to achieve loftier goals of any academic excellence. I played baseball just good enough to make the team but not to be very good. I played various musical instruments just good enough to get by but never really well to be the best at any of them. I have come to discover that just good enough is not really ‘good enough’.

And so sometimes I think have faith just good enough to be accepted into God’s kingdom, love that’s just good enough to care about a certain number of people near me and some who live on the fringes of life.

But Jesus says to exert myself or as the original language says, ‘strain every nerve’, or we might say to strain every muscle or fiber of your being, to step into the way of grace where with God nothing is impossible and where we can be the best and give God our best. Like those two women who made it into the Army Rangers, straining every ounce of muscle, energy, and emotional stamina to be not just good enough to get by but to be the best.

For me it has to do with my thoughts, my prayers, my reading of Scripture, my search for good fellowship and worship and striving to live my life as Jesus would live his life in me.

And as my grandfather used to say, ‘we don’t want to do it just good enough. We want it to be ‘right’’. Amen. And in this day the world needs to experience the excellence of a Christian witness that is much more than ‘good enough’.

 

WHY GOD WON’T FORGIVE US

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Recall that after Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer he concludes that if we don’t forgive others their sins, God won’t forgive us. Is that really true or was Jesus just using hyperbole to encourage this band of students to keep their community alive in love.

I want to throw this idea out there. It’s probably from someone else because that’s where all good ideas come from. Forgiveness means letting go of someone as though you were holding him or her by the neck for their debt to you or their trespass against you. It’s hard to hold out your hands to receive from God if you are preoccupied with payback from another.

You may remember Jesus telling the parable of the unforgiving debtor, one who having himself been pardoned by his master subsequently finds a debtor to himself out of whom this man almost literally chokes the life. Jesus concludes by saying that the first debtor was locked away for good.

Here’s the thing about forgiveness. It’s grace. It means doing for another what they cannot do for themselves. Grace means that you and I take the debt on ourselves as Jesus did for the whole world. If we cannot issue grace to another then it is evidence that we do not receive the grace of God and if we do not place our confidence in the grace of God we are left alone, removed from God as it were.

Amidst all the evilness of the world there is no one who does to us what we did to Christ. And make no mistake. He willingly took all that upon himself. He did it to make the world right with God. And anyone who wants to stand in that new world needs to do the same work with the help of God working in and through us.

Certainly it is possible to desire to forgive when the action comes with difficulty. God understands that. How hard was it for Jesus to take action to bring forgiveness to the world. Towards the end he would have like to escape such self-denying love.  So when it is difficult for us to forgive the best place to go is in the arms of our Savior to rest with him and abide with him and let him do the loving within and through us. Maybe it’s a little baby step at first but baby steps are good when we look to the growth they will bring.

So think of someone who needs your forgiveness even someone who has died. Think of someone far away or maybe in your own household. Then go to school with Jesus and let him teach you…and me the essence of his Grace.

And if we won’t forgive? Well, what we are saying to God is ‘no thank you.  We will handle life in our own way’, and we won’t want God anyway.

Many will come in those last days to Christ saying, ‘Lord Lord’ but Jesus will say that some will have to depart because they really didn’t want God’s will anyway.

But I would submit that forgiving another will be one of the greatest christian spiritual experiences of your life when you …and I let go of another to embrace God. That is the good life. So let’s be students of the good life.

 

 

A Tight Squeeze

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13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy [a that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. –Jesus in Mathew 7

We don’t go willy-nilly into Kingdom Life with Jesus. He inaugurated the Kingdom on earth and explained it in the Sermon on the Mount and invites his hearers to follow him, to listen to his words and do the things he says as a way towards transformation of their hearts and a way to build strong and joyful lives, knowing that no matter their circumstances they can place their confidence in him and experience the Kingdom life.

He calls the entrance into this kind of life a narrow gate, a hard way yet one that leads to life. We cannot enter it unless we are vigorous, trusting and obedient. It’s just the way it is. Life is like that in so many ways. I like the analogy Dallas Willard uses in his book ‘The Divine Conspiracy’. He writes that a math teacher tells his students, ‘Unless you can do decimals and fractions there is no way you will be able to do algebra.’ Some of us have had that experience. You can’t just do life your own way. There are ways and means and disciplines that are strenuous but lead to better life and I the case of the Kingdom, eternal life.

If you want to play the piano there are elementary things you must do first like learning the keys and the scales and then you must practice, practice and practice some more to be good and to enjoy the piano.

If you want to play basketball you must learn that the ball needs to go into the hoop and not in just some vicinity of the basket. You must learn how to dribble, pass and work as a team or you will not make it.

If we are going to follow Jesus then we must know the way that Jesus teaches, the path he sets for us. For example he tells us to forgive. If we say ‘no’, then we will never experience God’s forgiveness. That’s just the law of Kingdom life. Do we want to live that way knowing Jesus is the greatest teacher that ever lived and he is the Son of God as well? He tells us to pray, to love, to rest, and to trust and he tells us to believe that we are the children of God, that God is our Father, our Abba in the intimate Aramaic term.

He tells us there is a door of self-denial through which we must pass. It’s narrow, stress producing and confining but through it leads to open, freeing, joyous life. Not biological life but God’s eternal life that begins now.

Jesus says to stay in his word, read his word. Read it over and over until you have mastered its contents and then mastered its heart, the heart of Jesus. Those words in the Bible have life in them. Paul writes somewhere for us to let them dwell in our hearts.

I live in a gated community and to take my dog, Lucy, for a walk I have to enter through two posts where two different gates come together separating the properties. It is one tight squeeze and here’s the thing, if I gain any more weight I will not be able to get through. Through the gate is life and a long beautiful walk through the woods. Through the narrow gate is life with Jesus, with God’s spirit, with the Father. I don’t have to lose weight to get through but I might just need to lose ‘myself’.

Born Again

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Today I should like to suggest that the tired phrase ‘born again’ is a very rich expression for life in the Kingdom of God. Recall Jesus saying to Nicodemus, that he must be born again if he was to SEE the Kingdom of God. (John 3:3) One could say ‘born from above’ or ‘born anew’ but either way there is, from Jesus, the sense that one must start a new kind of life. I see that life as one of intentional interaction with God. It is not just enough to believe there is a God who is sovereign, who cares for his creation through his providence. One needs to have a new life experience with God. One needs to trust that God is actually engaged with us, is beginning a new work in us in the words of Philippians 1:6. This God is not static. His life is dynamic with us always moving, and relating with us.I believe that too often we can be satisfied with the theory of God and not the reality of God in us.

Jesus came to the earth to bring a brand new reality that can be trusted. That reality he called the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of the Heavens. And to see that Kingdom as a reality one needs a new birth, a starting over in life with a new perspective that throws out most old notions of God as ‘up there’ or ‘the man upstairs.’ We need instead to place our confidence in the Jesus who came to show us ‘The Father’ and through whom as Jesus said we actually see the most perfect loving character of God the Father.

Maybe other expressions of ‘born again’ would be ‘alive’ ‘have new eyes’ or ‘be alert’, ‘excite your senses’, ‘think outside the box’, ‘get rid of all your restraints’, ‘think creatively’.

If we, any of us, are going to experience Kingdom living here and now we have got to start being creative in the attitudes of our hearts and minds. We cannot love like Jesus love without this ‘interaction’ with the Father. We love because God loved us and that love of God is big. It’s huge. And our little kingdoms that we build all by ourselves do not have the capacity to love like that. When Jesus tells us to forgive everyone or we won’t be forgiven it requires a new dynamic, a new paradigm, a model unlike anything we have ever known. It requires really a new birth experience.

Jesus told his followers, his new students that they needed to become like a little child in order to enter the kingdom of God. (See Mark 10:15) They and we must come with a simple trust; arms wide open to receive the love of God in Christ as never before.  A child places his or her confidences in those who care for them. They are not prejudice. They don’t worry about tomorrow.  They don’t even worry about the clothes they wear. Children know how to love unconditionally.  Jesus had a special care for the children and told the folks the danger of hurting any one of them.

When Jesus tells us to be ‘born again’ he knows that we come with a package of previous behavior and attitudes but he also knows that by God’s grace those characteristics where they are harmful can change. We can set them aside as it were. (See Colossians 3:8) Paul’s writings

So how does this new birth take place? It is a conscious decision to place our confidence in God’s son, Jesus, who came to show us the character and providence of God. And as with a child we learn a new language of trust and love and peace and righteousness. The new birth is certainly assisted by the Holy Spirit, which is why Jesus probably mentions the wind blowing where it wants to because God in Christ is up to a new thing in his creation. It may be the first time we actually experience love from God.

We are given new eyes to see as when Elisha prayed for his servant to be able to see the armies of God surrounded them against the enemies. (2King 6:17)

If we are born again, starting new, revitalized then like a child we will need to learn how to read and here I refer to the Scriptures that can make us wise. (2Timothy 3:15) And as we talk with our Father we begin to learn the language of love.

And most of all being born again means that we become apprentices of Jesus. We enter his school of grace and truth. We sign up to practice the life that Jesus told us to live. He promises to live with and within us, to be with us to the end of the age.

So let me conclude by saying that being born again is a dynamic life with God at every moment. It affects our body, our minds, our spirit, our souls. This is not a theory. It’s not a doctrine. This is the new reality of the Kingdom of God that has come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He is the Kingdom of God and invites us into life with God.

By the way. Nicodemus? He shows up again as a follower of Jesus. (John 19:38-42)

 

 

Becoming an Olympian Christian

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It must be an amazing journey to become a participant in the Olympics. The process usually starts when a person is very young and someone has his or her sights set on the Olympic prize for a child or young person.  They need sponsors, lots of money and the opportunity to practice at time 24/7. They win at school events and then in the community, state and country.  They work hard for a goal, the medals and a place in history. Whether for a team or as an individual the Olympian is the best of the best.

 In some religions there are systematic ways by which with much striving, working, self-denial and self-discipline one can attain to the goal of being welcomed into the religious community, into the company of the elite.  But here I want to say that with Jesus it is different.

It is sort of like being made an Olympian first and then getting to practice until you reach perfection. Let me explain.

When Jesus began his ministry he told all people that they were welcomed into the Kingdom of God by his invitation. Say yes to the invite and they were ‘in’. Recall the Beatitudes, ‘Blessed are the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of God.’ (Luke 6:20)  Jesus is not saying that the state of being poor is blessed. It’s not. But to those who were poor, and whose poverty was seen as disfavor by God, Jesus said they were welcome into this Kingdom that had been newly inaugurated on earth through his presence.

 Jesus starts with the goal and once enlisted those who follow him will be taught how to live life in the Kingdom of God. They will be challenged to become perfect even as their heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48) And that’s a good thing because that kind of life is the good life, the God life in us.

 New life has come in Jesus and all we need do is place our trust in him and begin the journey. Will the journey be arduous at times? You bet but here’s the great thing. The coach will stay with us through the whole experience. In fact the coach, mysterious as this might sound, will place his life in ours.

I suspect if you are an Olympian athlete the coach’s voice will become ingrained into your very soul. Well, take the words of Jesus and let them soak into your mind. The Bible puts it like this, “Let the word of Christ dwell richly in you.” (Colossians 3:16) By word and Spirit we can’t go wrong.

 So no matter your condition when Jesus meets up with you please know that you are welcome into the Kingdom of his Father. It’s a brand new exciting life. And for the rest of your life you can have the pleasure of being in the day-to-day Olympics of living here and now in the Kingdom of God. 

A Fresh Approach to the Beatitudes

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It seems that a lot of folks look at the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 as some sort of spiritual self-examination to determine if they can get into the Kingdom of God.

I see them as wide-open invitations for everyone to place their confidence in Jesus because he IS the Kingdom of God. And he is there for everyone.  It is not a matter of reaching some kind of spiritual achievement before you can realize his presence. It’s a matter of trusting him to give you the Kingdom, entrusting it to you and me.

I want to imagine for a moment Jesus on a hillside with lots of people who have come there because they have heard that he might be the new Messiah for the people of Israel. Most of them have come to the hillside because they are not so welcome in the temple or synagogues. Perhaps the sick, the sinful, a few ‘righteous’ folks and among the crowds those whom Jesus would call to follow him were there too.

Now this is the first large gathering of folks and what Jesus would say would set a tone for his ministry. He wanted to be clear about what was expected in this new age and he wanted the people to be sure they knew their place in the Kingdom of God.  Some say that Matthew used ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ out of sensitivity about using the name of God. Kingdom of heaven and Kingdom of God are the same.

So Jesus is looking over the crowds. He knows who they are and why they have come. And he is about to make an invitation to join him in this Kingdom that he has brought. Remember that his first words were, ‘Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand’. (Matthew 4)

So now I want to use some different language for the beatitudes, words that have more impact on the folks for whom religion has become irrelevant or outdated. Nevertheless they express this good news that Jesus is announcing.

So let’s begin.

You have a special place in God’s heart and providence, you who think so little of yourselves, who have so little.  Even though you are not knowledgeable about spiritual things God places high value on your life and wants to give you his kingdom.

And you, the ones who hurt, ache, and grieve over life’s casualties, God has taken special regard for you in his kingdom. He wants to soothe you, comfort you, and hold you in his arms in his Kingdom and say, ‘It’s ok. You’re safe now’

And then he looks around and notices the people who always seem to take the last place or perhaps have been shoved there. There seems to be no room for you but THIS, my life surrounding and embracing you, is the new Promised Land You are with me and God will make sure that you share in everything that I have and will have. God is colonizing the earth with people like you. You rule!

And then Jesus takes note within his spirit of the Jews in the crowd who have longed for justice, righteousness, fairness that only the Kingdom of God could bring, only the Messiah could enact. Jesus is that justice, righteousness they long for. He is the Son of God, the King incarnate and tells them in so many words that their search is favored by God, approved by God if you will. They will be as satisfied as the sheep that graze on good ground.  God has heard their cry and sent his son to set things aright in the Kingdom of God.

And then there are those in the crowd who are so kind to others. In the midst of their hard lives they take time for others for it’s the only way perhaps right now that justice can be done. One on one. Face to face. God has a place for them in his heart. It’s for them his Kingdom has come. They may not have religious training. They may not be good Jews but they care. Love matters to God and so Jesus promises that in his administration they are going to receive, know, and experience the mercy, the kindness of God.   MORE TO COME…..

 

We Are Winning

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Paul writes in Romans 8:37 that in the midst of the greatest trials, afflictions and even death we are more than conquerors, we have the victory through Christ who loves us.  Let’s take a look at that thought for a moment for it has much to do with our lives in God’s Kingdom in the here and now.  This thought goes along with the words of Jesus in John 16:33 that in the world we are going to have tribulation but we don’t have to be afraid because Jesus has overcome the world.
For the early Christian community words like conqueror or victory belonged in the sphere of Roman occupation that oppressed the early Christian community sorely. So how were the new christians to become victorious?
When Jesus came into humanity he established the beachhead as it were for the Kingdom of God. He was by his person the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven to use the other Biblical expression founds mostly in the Gospel of Matthew. Those who followed him were privileged to enter this Kingdom.  Early christians knew something of the meaning of a kingdom.  Kingdoms came and went in those days.
The Kingdom of God thought by some to reside in the heavens had come to earth in Jesus.  He invited people to place their confidence in him and believe that God was with them, that God was initiating what would be the eventual renewal of the face of the earth.  God was having the victory against all attempts of evil to thwart his love and plan for humanity.  Paul put it in words like this, God was working everything towards a glorious purpose for those who had the eyes to see and will to trust.
And so no matter what is in store for us on this planet, the Kingdom of God supersedes it all.  Our relationship with God through Jesus Christ brings within this kingdom and within our selves a sense and satisfaction of ‘winning’ even when it looks like we are losing. The weak are actually strong in the Kingdom and the poor rich and the dead are alive.  This was established at the coming of Christ, throughout his life and finalized by his death on the cross which looked like defeat but proved the greatest victory through the resurrection.
So if today you are facing enormous obstacles, adversities and even death, say with the Apostle,
‘We are more than conquerors through him who loves us.’