The Comming Kingdom

We just got done with a political season where the two presidential candidates raised close to two billion dollars between them and here is the thing that not only intrigues me, but makes me sad.  Who gets elected from the President of the United States to local city and state government, people voice their opinion.  It ranges from the elected officials are going to get us back on track and save us, to they are going to ruin this city, state, or country by running it into the ground.  These two opinions and every other one has been voiced since September.  Here’s the thing, not much has changed since the birth of Christ in the first century. 

            The nation of Israel was in an uproar because not only were they trying to follow God through a list of rules and waiting for the Messiah, but they were under Roman rule as well.  Which means that when in Rome, you play by Roman rule, which didn’t sit well with the Nation of Israel.  The Israelites were hoping that their Messiah was going to come and over throw the Roman government and set up God’s Kingdom.  With in this hope, there was a group of Israelites known as Zealots, who took it upon themselves to initiate the coming Messiah by taking on Rome and trying to defeat them.  There was even this thought among Jesus Disciples that He was going to over throw the Roman Empire to set up God’s Kingdom and Jesus rebuked them.  So my question is that what does the Kingdom of God look like and how does it get put into practice on a daily basis. 

            I think there are three ideas that help us usher in God’s Kingdom, and by no means is this list exhaustive and the end all be all of.  The first Kingdom concept  is focus on ones heart and our relationship with Him.  If we are not growing in grace and maturity, are we really participating in God’s Kingdom.  God’s Kingdom requires a focus change from being a me first kingdom, where everything circles around me and my happiness, to putting God first and others second.  It is a realization that doing it our way ends in destruction, not matter how good our intentions our.  The other two kingdom ideas really come out of this idea of putting God first and not only making him our Savior, but the Lord of our life as well.  The second Kingdom is loving God with everything we have and others as ourselves.  It is realization that the world is bigger than my needs and wants and its not always about making sure that I am happy.  It is living that transformed life and maturing in God to who He has created us to be.  The third Kingdom concept is that we act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.  In other words, what does our earthly relationship look like?  Are we showing mercy to those we like and to those we have a hard time of liking.  How about acting justly, are we giving back the extra changed we received at the local store, not for who we claim to be, but it is the right thing to do.  Being a part of God’s kingdom is being in right relationship with God and others and how we interact with them on a daily basis.  With in this, we are not only bringing God’s justice, but we are bringing people into right relationship with us, others, and God.  This means praying for God’s blessing on people, even the ones we don’t like and who may be “out to get us.”  It also means forgiving people and seeking forgiveness, because being in right relationship often requires not only forgiveness, but it can also mean restitution.  So where are you at in God’s Kingdom? 

Worshiping Attitude

  As I have done some pondering lately, especially on the idea of worship and the attitudes that we carry into it.  I am probably not the only one, when I get to church, my mind is often anywhere but there.  Some of it is because I worked late the night before, or that I have to go to work after church, or some other reason.  There are times where I struggle just to pay attention.  There are many times I wish I could just focus in on the worship service and the Worship of God, but there are other distractions.  Through this thought process, I thought of King Saul and his leading of the nation of Israel.  Saul was in the hill country of Bethel with the Israelite army taking on the Philistines.  As the Philistines were gathering, the Israelite's were becoming outnumbered quickly and Saul got scared.  He waited seven days for Samuel to come and provide a burnt offering to God as an act of worship to God, so Saul did it himself.  As he was finishing up, Samuel showed up and Samuel rebuked Saul.  There are two directions we can take with this story, the first one, is validating ordain-able ministry which is another post, or how we worship God, especially in the time of adversity.  I chose the latter because I think it is applicable.

  If we were to go on reading 1 Samuel, we would find out that after Samuel rebukes Saul and that not long after that he cuts off all communication with Saul (with an exception of the Witch of Endsor incident).  This was a sign of God rejecting Saul and his lineage as king, and that Saul's rule did not finish well.  One of the things that got Saul in trouble is that he not only failed to wait for Samuel to perform the sacrifice, but performed the sacrifice himself.  Not only did Saul get nervous, but he got cold feet and took things into his own hands.  I think when we get nervous and cold feet during life circumstances and with God, we tend to do things our way and develop three dangerous attitudes.

   The first one is that we get desperate.  Not only do we try to do anything and everything, we often become irrational. Its the attitude that something has to be done and I am not going to wait.  We make it all about ourselves and what we can do, and we often do what has worked in the past, but the trick is, it God is not there or in it, we will fall flat on our face.  We often are looking at the gathering army and wondering how its going to be defeated and we get scared. We either carry that hero mentality that I am going to save the day and I am hoping and praying that God shows up through my effort and that He ordains it.  We make it all about us and we fail.  We tend to do this in worship, and thinking worship is about what we can bring to God and how well we can do it.  I don't want to diminish this thought, but true worship is more than just bringing sacrifices, but it is living in right relationship with God and others and that takes trust and sometimes patience and trust.

  The second attitude is the one of defiance.  I work at Wal Mart, so I see defiant toddlers quite often where if they don't get something, it is an all out scream fest.  I have seen some epic tantrums in my day.  How often do we get defiant of God, especially with our worship with God.  One of the causes of the worship wars in the church is because of tantrums we are having with God and others.  In other words we are telling God that we want things our way and we aren't budging.  The only way we will worship God is either through particular song, liturgy, or action.  In essence we are wanting God to play by our rules.

  The third attitude is art of distraction.  This is probably the most popular because we try to make the most of our time and multitask, which in the end, we are not being as productive as we could be.  Another reason that we are distracted during worship, is that we are not getting prepared before hand.  How often do we take time to prepare ourselves for worship.  It is usually a rush to get out of the house so we can just to make it to church on time.  When we are rushed, we aren't focused or prepared.  There is a story of a pastor of a small church who tried everything to get the church to grow, but nothing was working and he was at the end of his rope.  One day he was lamenting to God about this and God spoke and asked if he was ready to stop trying so hard and join in with Him.  God challenged the pastor to spend every Saturday night in prayer and preparation, and the pastor agreed.  When the pastor did this, God took over and the church became one of the fastest growing churches in the United States.  We often let things, not matter how good they are distract us, and we need to remember the Lords prayer of They kingdom come Thy will be done.

  Now these attitudes are far from exhaustive, and they are just many of the ways the enemy tries to distract us from doing the will of the Father