Kingdom

Warning. I've been thinking. Lately I've been thinking about the kingdom of God and how it applies to our lives every day. We talk about being kingdom subjects, under the lordship of Yaweh, but how do we see it and experience it? When I pray, I try to follow the Lord's Prayer example as closely as I can and I always pray for God's kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.
There is a recent song that has been released by Derek Webb. The chorus is this, "My first allegiance is not to a flag, a country or a man. My first allegiance is not to democracy or blood. It's to a King and a kingdom." Admittedly, I find myself in a strange place. I am a Christian who sometimes doesn't want that label. I see that Christians are defined as zealous patriots and white, middle class Republicans. I don't always feel patriotic. I am undoubtedly white and in the lower middle class. But before any of these definitions touch me, I am a child of God.
I am a kingdom subject. I am an ambassador of God's kingdom, which exists already all around us. But what does that mean? Does it mean that I am hand out brochures about how great heaven is? Heaven isn't really the goal of the Christian life. Christ is. But how do we as the church get Christ to people? Do we merely invite them to church and hope they hear something they like? Do we adjust our prayers and lives to make them comfortable? How do we convince them that God's kingdom is real?That leads me back to the earlier questions. How do we experience God's kingdom? Only then can we share it with others.
In God's kingdom there will be health without limit. Our new bodies will be complete and without suffering. There will be peace. There will be no death, no jealousy, no listless wandering. Everything will point to the Glory which is God. There will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control.
These things are what we are to be living in. Healing. Peace. Harmony. I'm starting to sound like John Lennon. But what is it that people are on about all over the world? Is it not peace, healing, harmony...?
Scripture teaches us that it will not come until Jesus does. So are we to sit back and retain our sinfulness until Jesus returns? Absolutely not! We are to live in the kingdom. Let it come to us as it is in heaven. Healing those we can. Bringing peace when we are able. Being at peace with all men as much as it is possible.We are to be more and more Christ like in our lives.
This is how we will be partakers of the redemption of the world. We decrease. Our names are less and less important. The spotlight on us fades as the light inside us grows and overtakes it, the light that is Jesus. Our hearts become well springs of life that others are able to partake of. We will have all things in common. I could go on.
But as it is, we separate ourselves from the world by definition instead of by action and citizenship. We come against those things which we are told our fight is not against. Our war is with things unseen. We see the effects of that war, and like medicine these days, we attack the symptoms and leave the disease to fester and grow.
Pray that God will send His Holy Spirit. Pray that you will be filled. Pray that the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.

Momre Blessings

First things first. The kingdom of heaven is present around you and me. Mostly unseen, but there. And so we pray that God's will be done here on earth the same as it is in heaven. Visible and tangible and real. But then there's the curse. That wretched bind that refuses to release our hearts and minds fully to God.
That said, we move to Jesus' words. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I could go into a long description of different types and intensities of persecution, but that isn't what I need to do. Persecution is for you and God to hash out. I believe He knows it better than I, so ask Him.
Here's the thing, though. When you let Jesus act through you to show his love and power in the world, you may get strange looks. You may be ousted, even from those claiming to know God. Wherever it is from is irrelevant. In that moment of pain, you experience a small taste of what Jesus endured for you. You also get an open window into the kingdom of heaven.
Your eyes are a little more open to miracles. You see God working a bit more and hopefully take initiative in pitching in. Maybe gifts become revealed to you. The thing is you are walking closer with God, sharing in his suffering be it ever so little.
For this reason, rejoice when you are persecuted. And don't get down. Pay attention and see if God doesn't let you in a little more intimately than before.

Peaceful Sons

Jealousy. Envy. Disappointment. Anger. Depression. Arrogance. Low Self-Esteem. Addiction. These things and more do one thing in our lives above all else. They create divisions. Take a look around you. Think back to younger days. Visualize how people are automatically categorized upon appearance, ability, education. Think about how even our churches are separated and categorized by color, denomination, theology and even commitment. Do you realize that this is one thing we rarely hear in our prayer requests? Unity among men in the name of Jesus is important. But daily we perpetuate the division by trying o prove that we're right and everyone else is wrong. We spend so much time trying to persuade people of our beliefs, sometimes we even try to persuade ouselves, that we miss out on the blessing of the Truth!
Jesus, in the book of Matthew, is recorded to have said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." Later on he says that a tree is recognized by its fruit. If peacemakers are called sons of God, then wouldn't that be one of the signs of a child of God? Creating peace instead of tearing down the vision.
What do you see when you look at people? Samuel Jackson played in a movie where the character called his attorney on the carpet for his prejudice. He complained because when he was mentioned of seen he was seen as a black man. In all actuality he was a man. Just a man. That's what he wanted to be known as. Not black. Not short. Not handsome or homely. He bleeds just the same as everyone else.
It seems to me that there is a right. Jesus is that right. He is the Truth after all. As children of God we should be seeking to unify our brothers and sisters, finding the places where we agree and agreeing to disagree in other places. As long as Jesus is the true center, then why can't we live together in peace? No more denominations. No more First, Second and Third Baptist churches. Just the people of God, claiming to be just that and changing the world in the process. Blessed ar ethe peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed

The heart. It is a final frontier for most of the world. It tends to be a place we talk about and speculate over how to fix it and work on it. But we rarely go there. Scripture tells us we should guard it above all else, for it is the wellspring of life. Our mouths speak with what overflows from the heart. The heart is the very center of our being. It makes us who and what we are. And every day our heart is bombarded with life. From the very day we were conceived and our lives were being formed, experiences have shaped who we'd be. Genetically and emotionally and physically our hearts were formed. And this continues, though many choose to guard what has already happened to their heart and leavie it as it is. Many have hearts that resemble salvage yard sweethearts, rusted and beat up with parts missing here and there. The color is gone and that's just the way it is. Others have fewer dents and dings, but still have a hardened heart in some respects.
The problem with this is that we not only experience the world from our hearts, but we interact with and see the world from them. This means that the shape our heart is in affects our reaction to what the world dishes out. A hardened heart will be cold and callous in response. A weakened heart will give up. The view is always marred from a human heart. What is truly going on is invisible or at the least blurry. It is like trying to look out a windshield that has been pelted with rocks. You can see a little, but visibility is quite limited.
A clean heart would be ideal. A heart that has been renovated and refurbished; renewed. Another word is redeemed. Jesus said that one with a pure heart is blessed because they will see God. God is truth. Unmarred. Unblurred. Crystal clear. None of us can see him perfectly in our lives for our hearts have been under attack for years. Even those who have learned to guard them still have a ways to go to get them refinished.
Here is the irony. In order to see God, you must trust him. No amount of religious exercise and healthy diet will fix our hearts. Do you want to see God? Invite him in and let him go to work. He pulls out the dents. He seals the cracks. He's giving you new life and a new heart.
Many will try to get along with such low visibility and crash along the way, only adding to the pain and the damage in the heart. All it takes is spending time forming a relationship with Jesus. Talk with him. Listen to him. Hear him. Hang out with him. Let him get to know you and get to know him. Before you know it, you start to see him in the world around you. Then you begin to know you're blessed.