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. 

Prayers that change nations

As Winston Churchill famously said during the Second World War ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’ 

I believe that when the books of heaven are opened at the end of time when Jesus returns, these words will be aptly applied to praying Christians. These are vital days in our nations and the people need our prayers. Our friends and relatives need to be saved. People need to be healed, lifted out of debt, marriages restored, families become places of love and nurture. 

But over all these we need to raise our eyes to the bigger picture. Our nations need God. In these uncertain times we must lift our eyes from our personal preference to what does God desire for our nation. And what God desires is that his Kingdom come and his will be done because he has great plans for them.That is what our nations need. The Kingdom of God and it is the prayers of faith filled Christians that will accomplish this.

Your immediate response may be that this is too big, too hard but if we as a faith filled church and praying Christians don’t do this, what is the alternative? One that is too awful to contemplate. 

The prophet Isaiah said, ‘Here am I Lord, Send me.’ It starts with a willing heart and time carved out of our busy schedules. It begins with a life of devotion to our amazing, loving God, worshipping, reading the Word and praying. 

If 120 praying Christians on the Day of Pentecost could shake a city and 3000 were saved, think what a praying church could do. 

Simple, earnest faith filled prayers will change a nation. 

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.

Our future inheritance

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory.  Ephesians 1: 13 – 14

These are more wonderful verses from Ephesians chapter 1 which are worth a longer look.  I was surprised how often Paul spoke in his letters about the Holy Spirit being a seal, a deposit guaranteeing what is to come. I quickly found 3 other references using almost exactly the same.  This is an important truth that Paul wanted the early church to hear. 

Paul assures us that having believed in the word of truth, our salvation, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit. The seal denotes ownership not in a slave and master way but in a loving Lord looking after his own.   The Holy Spirit was also given us a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. Now we know that an inheritance is something we receive when someone dies and it is usually something very nice. When my father died I received an inheritance from him which was certainly a great blessing.  

A deposit is a down pavement on something so the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing what is to come. So what is our inheritance that we have received down payment for? The Bible refers to it as the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 25:34) or kingdom of God (James 2:5) or kingdom of light (Colossians 1: 12).   When we are born again we are able to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3) and we have in some measure access to the kingdom but because of our fallen world it is only a measure.

When we die, we inherit full access to the kingdom and full rights as co-heirs with Christ of that kingdom (Romans 8: 17).  What is more our bodies will be transformed, glorified so we are completely like Jesus (Philippians 3: 21). That is some inheritance!! 

Now that is probably enough theology for one day as I am struggling to get my head around these wonderful promises. However I know that as we let these truths of our future inheritance sink into our spirits; truths that Paul was so keen to try and help the early church understand, it will transform the way we think about life here and now. The more we realise what a wonderful future we have both in this life and the next, the more it will stop us living just for now. It should help us build for a glorious tomorrow while at the same time making the most of every moment and opportunity today.  

The KIngdom of heaven is near

As you go, preach this message,: The Kingdom of heaven is here. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.  Matthew 10:7- 8

Jesus only mentions the church twice in all his teachings and we find these in Matthew 16: 18 and 18: 17.  Yet he talks about the Kingdom all the time. As Christians we tend to talk about church all the time and hardly ever about the Kingdom.

Jesus said, ‘I will build my church...’ (Matthew 16: 18) yet too often we spend all our time building the church not the Kingdom.  I believe that what God wants instead is that we do what he told the first disciples to do: preach the Kingdom and then do it; heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the skin diseases and drive out demons.

The Kingdom of God is God’s rule and reign and God asks us to bring this to people. We need to talk to them first about the King, not the church. He wants us to talk to people about his amazing love for everyone and his desire that all be saved from their sin. He wants us to heal the sick and minister to people’s needs in Jesus’ Name.

Let’s become more Kingdom minded. Let’s talk about the Kingdom and the King and then let’s do the things that Jesus did and more.