The Kingdom and the Normal

What is normal? Today, academia mocks the normal - the family, the heterosexual, the hard-working man and woman who simply raise a family. The family is a difficult prospect because it requires a belief that the sometimes dreary work of being faithful, of working a boring job, of sacrificing present pleasure for future generations is worthwhile. It is worthwhile if you build in faith, in a God who blesses those who are faithful, in a God who is buildig His kingdom as the inevitable consequence of the gift of His Son.

So everything . . .

that happens is an opportunity for God's kingdom to come. We pray, "Thy kingdom come . . . on earth as it is in heaven." How can we have anything to do with that? We can't, except as He allows us. The King needs only loyal subjects, who believe the king is good. Then whatever he asks will result in our simple trusting obedience. It matters not whether it is small or large in the eyes of man, or even whether any human being ever knows you existed or did what God called you to do. It's about Him anyway.

Love

Is it not love that determines whether and how we obey God's law? Our defective hearts, corrupt minds, and pride keep us from obeying the God who is love. The Kingdom involves everything - politics, economics, family, church, individually, and all the rest. Thus, we need more than law; we need the miraculous power of resurrection working in our hearts. Thus, Christ alone can save and bring about God's Kingdom because He alone has the power of resurrection.

Sen. Robert Byrd

Sen. Robert Byrd is now face to face with his maker, where we will all end up one day. God's kingdom is clearly before him, and God determines what his future will be in His eternal kingdom. But what effect will his life on earth, no, what effect will his political life on earth have upon that future. Did Robert Byrd care one whit whether his politics affected things for God's kingdom? Some would ask, Can political decisions have any affect at all? Read the Hebrew bible and look at how God judges the political rulers of that time. How is God's kingdom affected in politics? Or is that too presumptuous of me to ask? Should I just believe that God works it all out with or without me? Well, I know He does - He's God. But that doesn't answer the question whether what I do is good or bad, for His kingdom or against it. Wouldn't the bible have some guidance for me in that regard? Wouldn't my following the bible in my politics have some kingdom effect, no matter how small it may be?

The Kingdom is within you

As a young Christian in college, I was taught that Jesus did not mean it when he said to some Pharisees, "The kingdom of God is within you." What He really was "The kingdom of God is in your midst." But that is not logical. He was answering a specific question first of all. "Shall the kingdom come with external signs?" Jesus was an external sign; so were his miracles. It would not make sense to answer that particular question the way he did unless he meant what He said: "The kingdom of God is within you."

Second, His statement was aspirational. In other words, He could have said, "The kingdom of God should be within you." Thus, he reaffirmed that salvation is by faith alone. Faith is within you, in your heart. It is not that there are no external effects. "Faith without works is dead," but first you have to have faith. Jesus meant it when He said that the kingdom is within you. It is either in your heart, or you don't have it at all, even if Jesus Christ is standing in your midst.

Start and end with your heart -- if you do, the externals will show themselves.

Invisible

Faith is invisible. Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you. Think about the fact that man goes about his work and life punctuated with points of courage and faith that seem to stand out and demonstrate what is on the inside. But for the most part we simply press on being faithful in what God has called us. Sometimes it appears boring and uneventful. Think about Abraham: add up all the time of his life recorded in the bible, and you would probably not accumulate a year of literal time-passage that was recorded. The rest of his life was "uneventful" to us, but that does not mean he wasn't walking in faith. Thus, the kingdom is built not always with grand events, miraculous activity, crowd-wowing accomplishments. Even Jesus, the Son of God, only spent about three years in almost continuous miraculous activity. But he spent the other thirty living faithfully, living with and taking care of His family.

Law

You would think that law would be easy to apply in God's kingdom, but it is not. The fact that so many Christians teach against God's law is a shock and shame. That failure seems to be based on either a fear of man or a misunderstanding of grace. Having said that, however, it is clear to me, based on personal experience, that it is possible to study God's law so thoroughly and without a proper grounding in grace, that one begins to fall into the error of the Pharisees. A thorough study of God's law requires a thorough understanding of Christ's full atonement and His rebukes of the Jewish people who had missed Him while searching the scriptures.