Bringing God's KIngdom

It has always been a matter of great concern to me that many countries that are ruled by dictators or tyrants, have a praying Church, yet it seem as if their prayers are not answered. Despite all their crying out to God, the dictator carries on ruining the country and devastating people’s lives. When I see these rulers cruelly subjecting people, making their lives a misery, selfishly exploiting the country to the detriment of the poor, I want God to judge them.  And I want him to judge them now. I want their dictatorships overturned and something nasty to happen to the tyrants. So why doesn’t God act?  I’ve been seeking God for the answer to this.

First of all, this cry for justice has echoed down the centuries. The psalmists were often heard to say, ‘How long, O Lord?’ before you act (Psalm 13: 1, 35: 17, 79:5 and others) and in the book of Revelation we hear the martyrs waiting in heaven asking the same question. They long for God to act  - to be God in fact.

I felt God say that he loves every one of those dictators and he is giving them an opportunity to repent, because the punishment they will receive is so awful, so fearful, so horrific and it will last for eternity, that God is giving them opportunity to turn from their wicked ways. Nebuchadnezzar was given that opportunity and he in fact repented.  Every dictator and tyrant will be judged justly and with righteousness but it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 

Whilst I understand this, it feels very unsatisfactory. What about the poor people suffering terribly at their hands? If feels like their lives are worth less than the dictator and their oppressive regime. God assured me that he loves all and will provide and protect all who turn to him. 

The kingdoms of this world are not the Kingdom of our God. God says he rules and reigns even in the darkest hellhole as Corrie Ten Boom found in the Nazi concentration camps. 

Too often people want a Godly government to do what the ecclesia, the Church ruling and reigning, should be doing. Christians pray for the overthrow of an ungodly government to be replaced by a Godly government instead of realising that it is the Church who must reign and bring God’s Kingdom into their lives, regions and nations. 

Where God’s Kingdom comes through the Church, people are saved, healed, delivered and provided for. They may live under a heavy burden but they should not only look for earthly governments to save them. Our prayers must not be just for the overthrow of evil and wickedness which we must do but much more for the establishment of God’s Kingdom rule and reign. As God’s Kingdom is established, the darkness has to flee as His Kingdom brings light and life. 

Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries

I watched a clip from Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries in northern Mozambique which illustrates this perfectly.  The whole area is a terrible war zone. As she spoke you could hear helicopters flying overhead to continue their warfare. The entire huge campus of Iris Ministries was full of internally displaced refugees and in the midst of this the Kingdom had come. People were being fed, saved, healed. The Mozambique government could do nothing. They were too busy fighting a war. The Church had arisen and brought the Kingdom. It wasn’t easy but God was showing his love to all.

What is our role in all this in the West? The poor need the prayers and the financial support of the rich and the rich need the prayers of the disadvantaged. We must pray not so much for a change of government but for God’s Kingdom to come. That in the midst of injustice, in the midst of tyranny, God will come in loving power through his Church, side-lining the oppressor. 

It doesn’t seem fair and it isn’t but in the midst of oppression, God will come overthrowing evil and bringing his love and at the end of all things, everyone will be judged in righteousness and all wrongs righted. 

Praying in unity

How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! Psalm 133: 1

As I wrote yesterday, the Body of Christ – the Church – has a high calling to dwell together in unity to bring about God’s incredible plans and purposes.  

I was reminded this morning that when we stand with others in heaven, either when we leave this life, or when Jesus returns, we will stand in perfect unity. Our focus will be on one thing and one thing only, our Lord and Saviour, the King of the Universe, Jesus Christ. 

Everything we do in eternity, and I firmly believe we will busy about the King’s business, will be for him and for his glory.  Our training ground is our life on this Earth. All that we have learned and accomplished here will be carried forward into eternity. Everything from our days on earth will be tested in his fire (1 Corinthians 3: 12 - 15) and those things that withstand the fire will be rewarded. Everything else will be burnt to ash. 

C S Lewis wrote If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. 

With this thought in mind, dwelling together in unity now, will yield incredible treasure in heaven.  It prepares us not only for our life in eternity but also brings about what God desires in our lives, churches and nations now.

Jonathan Edwards said When God is about to do a mighty new thing He always sets His people praying.

If there is one thing that Brexit has achieved in the Body of Christ in UK has been prayer. I do not think there has ever been as much prayer for the nation since the Second World War. However for our prayers to be truly effective we must ‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace’ Ephesians 4: 3. 

The only way to do this when praying about this highly contentious issue is ‘to fix our eyes upon Jesus’Hebrews 12: 2.  When we focus on him, not on our wishes and opinions, I believe we will move closer and closer together and will find ourselves praying ever more effectively for his will and his Kingdom to come. 

Desiring and praying for God’s plans, laying aside our personal opinions on the subject, no matter how much we believe we are right, will release a mighty outworking of Kingdom power that will startle us, our nation, and the world. 

Emmanuel - God with us

At this Christmas time, we remember that Jesus is Emmanuel – God with us. Jesus came to show what God is like as well as to die for the sins of the world. He told Thomas ‘if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father.’

If we stop and think what Jesus is like, we see someone with a huge heart for the lost and dying, someone who loved people, who helped and healed those whom society had little time for. 

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and illness among the people.  News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralysed; and he healed them. Matthew 4: 23 – 24.

Having met their needs, he then sat down and taught the crowd, the teaching now known as The Beatitudes. The first one was ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ Matthew 5: 3. Who were the ‘poor in spirit’? I believe, as Dallas Willard wrote, that the poor in spirit were this crowd of needy people – the sick, demon possessed, those in pain and paralysed. They had been blessed because the Kingdom had come to them. 

When John the Baptist, discouraged and in prison sent his disciples to ask Jesus if her was the one, he told them; ‘Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor’ Luke 7: 22.

The sign of the Kingdom (the King’s domain) and of the Messiah, the King was wonderful things happening and good news proclaimed to the poor.

As I have written before God gets a bad press. People are very quick to believe that God is an angry, vindictive God just itching to judge and condemn the world but nothing could be further from the truth. … God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4: 8 – 10.

Jesus was only ever angry with the religious leaders and temple authorities who should have

known better. Right from his birth they stubbornly refused to believe that Jesus was the longed for Messiah. They opposed him who came to bring life in all its fullness. Jesus never was angry, cross or irritated by the poor, ignorant and needy people. He had compassion on them but those who led the people astray into dead religion he condemned.

God is everything that is good and kind. He is gracious, merciful and he showed this by sending his son into the world to show the world just what he is like. Jesus is Emmanuel.

But now as Bill Johnson said: Its all about us becoming a generation who can authentically display who Jesus is. He is the desire of the nations. (Haggai 2: 7). He is what everybody wants they just don’t know it.  The more we represent Jesus as he genuinely is, the more desirable we become to the nations.  Our job is to destroy the works of the devil, just as Jesus did – heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons and cleanse lepers (Matthew 10: 8).

So this Christmas as the world turns albeit briefly to remember Jesus let’s be those who represent Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, to the world by doing the things he did and by bringing his presence wherever we go.