Your kingdom come

It (meaning everything) has always only been about redemption – a repair of brokenness through reconciliation to God.   The Lord’s plan, set into immediate motion at the time of Adam’s sin, is to return His people to our place in the Garden of Eden.   (Interestingly, in its Hebrew origin: “Eden” = “Delight”).  Eden was the place of divine relational delight, experienced within the perfect boundaries of God’s Kingdom on earth.  Within the confines of The Garden, there was unblemished love and intimacy reciprocated.  The man, Adam, lived in harmony with his Creator under His established rule.

It is God’s will that His kingdom is established on earth, today (as it is in heaven, and as it was in the Garden).  This requires much from us - obedience, responsibility, discipline, love.  And so I’m learning that it isn’t about getting spiritual; it’s about getting holy.  He said, “Be holy for I am holy”.  This holiness, different from righteousness, is inextricably linked to purpose – we function in His purposes as we are conformed to His own image, through obedience.  While the literal Eden was forfeited through Adam’s disobedience, we are given the opportunity to construct a new kind of Eden through our obedience.  His kingdom, when established through the holiness of His people, creates an environment (like Eden) where love and intimacy abound.  In this place, redemption is not only made manifest, but is accessible and even attractive to the world.  It’s a curious thing…a people experiencing wholeness and fulfillment and divine delight through a willing submission to an unseen Kingdom’s authority. 

God’s desire is to redeem, and He is inviting us to be a part of the process.  Every word we speak, and every action we perform can cultivate the atmosphere of His kingdom and set the stage for the supernatural redemptive work of His Spirit in the lives of those around us.  I’ve begun asking God this question regarding those I meet: “What does this person need to get to the place where they will be repaired/redeemed by You?”  In my experience, He has been faithful to answer this sort of willing-vessel prayer.  We are then blessed with the opportunity to obey, our neighbor is given a glimpse of God’s heart towards them, and God’s Kingdom is established in our midst.

“It is God’s will that none should perish”.  So, if we take seriously our call to co-labor with The Lord to bring His kingdom to earth and His redemption to the world, it should cause us to seriously consider our methods and roles in helping this become a reality...that our lives (and not just our words) would exclaim, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". 

a burden worth the weight

“The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.  It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.  All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations.  It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.  There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal.  Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.  But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.  This does not mean we are to be perpetually solemn.  We must play.  But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.  And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner – no mere tolerance, or indulgence, which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.  Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.  If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat – the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”    -C.S. Lewis,  The Weight of Glory

Why is it so tempting to construct groupings of “Us” and “Them” based on arbitrary criteria?

Conservative vs. Liberal vs. Moderate

Democrat vs. Libertarian vs. Republican

Catholic vs. Baptist vs. Pentecostal vs. Non-Denominational vs. …

Why does a “them” category evoke an emotional response?

Are these categories eternal?

Why is it so easy to form an argument as to why “we” are right and “they” are wrong?

How is it “they” became our enemies?

Why does picking a side take precedence over “loving God and loving our neighbors”?

Are not “they” unique and treasured image bearers of Almighty God?

Will we lift up Christ and let Him draw all men unto Him? (John 12:32)

Will we remember that it’s the kindness of God that leads us to repentance? (Rom. 2:4)

Or do we think "we" hold a monopoly on hearing God's voice? 

I want an eternal perspective.  I need God’s grace to bear, with humility, the burden of my neighbor’s glory.

shhhh

I submit to you two passages of scripture:

• Matthew 17:1-5:  Six days later Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James, and led them privately up a high mountain.  And he was transfigured before them.   His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.  Then Moses and Elijah also appeared before them, talking with him.  So Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you want, I will make three shelters – one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said,  “This is my one dear Son, in whom I take great delight. Listen to Him!”   
• Mark 12:28-31:  Now one of the experts in the law came and heard them debating. When he saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”  Jesus answered, “The most important is: ‘Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’  The second is: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no other commandment greater than these.” 

Two remarkable moments, very different in circumstance, but identical in implication:  our greatest responsibility is to listen to Him. 

Consider the details:

• In Matthew, Jesus climbed a mountain with His three closest friends.  His face started shining and His clothes turned white.  Moses and Elijah came out of nowhere and started talking to Him and then a voice appeared from a cloud.  At that moment, I imagine the Lord had a captive audience.  He could have told them to do anything and Peter, James, and John would have readily obeyed.  But He said only one thing, “Listen to [My Son]”.   Peter was a doer – let’s build 3 tabernacles, let’s walk on the water, let’s cut a soldier’s ear off.  He had to be reminded (as do I) of the value of listening before doing.
• In the Mark passage, Jesus was engaging in conversation with some of the religious folk who were asking all sorts of questions, trying to trap Him with His own words.  An expert (teacher) in the law happened upon the scene and noticed that Jesus was answering them all blamelessly and joined in the discussion, asking, “what is the greatest commandment?”.  Enter another captive audience…Jesus had been perfect in His answers up until this point, how would He respond to that?  How could you possibly choose one commandment as paramount?  “The most important is: listen…”  Listen?  Listen.  And then love. 

From this listening a love is naturally birthed.  The two are intricately woven together as the greatest commandment.  To listen is to live life with a stethoscope affixed to my ear and extended to the heart of God…to hear His heartbeat for the nations, for my neighbor, for me.  This kind of listening is continual and active.  Like faith, which requires works, love requires listening to be sanctified.  

So once again, I am challenged with this command to listen.  I know that I am dependent upon His voice for my every breath and decision.  My faculties are not sufficient for a solo navigation of this life to which He has entrusted me.  He has shown us His tendency to be found in the still small voice or in the simple things that confound the wise.  Why would I be so proud as to think that I could listen without slowing down, without removing distractions, without focusing solely on Him?  He makes known the path of life.  In His presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore.

first things first

Faith. Hope. Love.  These three are sisters, interrelated yet independent.  But best understood and best applied in the context of one another.  They are all three indispensable for a believer and inseparable from a believer.  A Christian without hope, should seem to me as absurd as a Christian without faith.  How can a Christian be called so without faith, which is the doorway to salvation in Christ, and without which it is impossible to please God?  “For by grace you have been saved through faith”, period.  And hope, the anchor for our souls, is grounded and held steadfast only in His presence.  This anchor alone allows us to desire and expect the preferred future that He promises, despite anything circumstantial that would tempt us to believe otherwise.  This hope assures us that what we put our faith in, is true.  A follower of Christ cannot exist outside of faith and hope, but to these two there is a third sister.  And although related, she is greater.  Her greatness does not diminish the importance of the first two, but rather provides the framework in which all three can exist to their full potential. 

Although the reasons for her greatness are numerable, I’ve narrowed my thoughts to three:

1. Love was always God’s motivation

The God of the Universe is.  He is unbound by space, time, or any other constraint we can fathom.  He is: ineffable, inconceivable, unimaginable.  He is before all things and by Him all things consist.  This God, who we cannot comprehend or describe, can be motivated.  His motivation is love.  When His creation first sinned, separating the Holy God from an unholy people, He immediately set into motion a plan for redemption.  A recovery of the lost relationship for which mankind was created…a gift, which would require everything of the giver and nothing of the recipient.  “For God so loved the world, that He gave…”

“Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other.” –Philip Yancey

Without the love-gift of Calvary, there would be no faith, there would be no hope.

2. Love will endure

Love never fails.  When time is merged in eternity, faith will give way to sight and hope’s fulfillment will be enjoyed.  Only love will remain unchanged.  When we mortals put on immortality, we will see Him as He is.  And for the first time, a grand collision will occur as the source and the object of this perfect love meet face-to-face; resulting in the spontaneous worshipful proclamation, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty”.  This love - finally fully understood and experienced - will remain for eternity, perfected and perpetuated by The One who is all, and yet gave all, for the object of His affection.   

3. Love deems this world worth rescuing

Faith unites us to God.  Hope moves us toward God.  But love conforms us into His very image and gives us the avenue by which to reveal Him to a dying world.   Faith and hope are for my benefit; love is for the benefit of others.  The love He requires of us, wants the highest good for others and is willing to do whatever it takes to see that good come to pass.  It is an undefeatable benevolence and an unconquerable goodwill.  It will always give freely without asking anything in return.  Love is a bar set so high by Christ that it is unattainable apart from Him.  While I was still a sinner, Christ died for me.  He loved me too much to leave me the way that I was, and He simply asks that I view others through the same lens of grace through which He viewed(s) me.

Grace should be the church’s distinctive.  It’s the one thing that can bring hope to a jaded world.  And in it’s authentic form, it is the one thing that the world cannot duplicate.  Too often, however, the ones who have experienced this perfect love are the least likely to extend it to others.  What the world so desperately craves and so entirely deserves is neither a church who perpetuates the cycles of “ungrace” and power that dominate the world’s systems, nor a church who (on the opposite extreme) deconstructs her beliefs and dilutes her words.  What they deserve is a people who are willing to return to the example set by Jesus, Himself:  a church who deliberately surrenders to His love for her and willingly becomes a vessel through which that same love invades and transforms every area of every life.