Taking Back the Kingdom

Have you ever had the experience of learning something new, or seeing an idea in a whole new light that makes you excited beyond words?  That happened to me last week one night after our training.  I was so excited by what God had revealed to me that I was literally jumping up and down.  Ever since I’ve been trying to think of how to put it all into words.

I think my whole life I have thought that the cross of Christ was the end of the road.  It is where we land when we hit rock bottom and can’t move another step forward, but it’s far from the end of the story.  In fact, what I’ve been learning recently is that it’s just the beginning.  I think we all know people (and have possibly been one ourselves) who have received the gospel of salvation and are holding their “ticket to heaven” just waiting for Jesus to come back or for death to take them, whichever comes first.  I know it’s not a pretty picture, but when we boil down everything in our lives, sometimes that’s what it seems to come to.  When I think about the things I’ve believed, I realized that in a nutshell, that’s how I was too. 

But don’t you just know that there is something more?  Yes, absolutely we need the gospel of salvation.  I believe it’s true what Jesus said that, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  But we don’t receive salvation just so we can sit around and wait to go to heaven.  We receive God’s mercy and grace so we can enter into the kingdom.   It is this gospel of the kingdom that is often missing from our vocabulary. 

When you study Jesus’ life and teachings you will notice a pattern.  He spent the majority of his time explaining to people that the kingdom of heaven was at hand.  When God created man, his vision was that man, created in God’s image, would walk in close relationship with him.  The kingdom of heaven is all about returning to a right standing before God and regaining the authority over creation that we lost when sin entered the world.  It is this that Jesus came to preach.

When Jesus sent out the 12 disciples we read that, “he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” (Luke 9:1-2)  He doesn’t send them out to teach high-minded doctrines and saddle people with more religious jargon and rules.  He sent them out to bring the kingdom of God a little closer to us.  Likewise, when Jesus taught the disciples to pray he taught them, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10)  We beseech God to come to us and dwell among us.  That’s what the kingdom is all about!

So often we accept Christ and consider ourselves saved only to then sit back in the pew and wait.  What are we waiting for?  God doesn’t call us to salvation so we can sit idly by till the end of the world.  He calls us to be active citizens of the kingdom!  Our ultimate goal shouldn’t be to simply escape this world of sin and degradation.  We aren’t here to pass out tickets to heaven and call it good.  We’re here to establish God’s authority on earth, and to rule in victory with him. 

What does taking back the kingdom actually look like?  Colossians 1:9-12 says, “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.  And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.”  As citizens of the kingdom we praise God and seek to glorify him in all we do.  With each person who falls at the foot of the cross, a bit more of the kingdom is visible.  As we pray and study God’s word and learn to walk with him in our daily lives, we cast out the darkness, replacing it with God’s glorious light.  Taking back the kingdom means renewing our minds to God’s Truth.  Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” 

How you think about the future impacts the way you think about how you live your life now.  So what’s it going to be?  Will you sit back and wait for the end, or will you stand with God in the kingdom and seek to share in his vision for you life?  It’s time to choose!