“You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.” With our expectations and faith calibrated on the sweet by and by, the kingdom of God is being overshot and unexplored.
One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: “Which is most important of all the commandments?” Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.” The religion scholar said, “A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate—that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that’s better than all offerings and sacrifices put together! When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, “You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.”
I am unsure if the western Church has even found its way to the border. George Barna’s research verifies that we definitely have not entered in. His findings reveal the disturbing facts that a large percentage of those who identify themselves as christians do not believe in the fundamental tennents of the faith. For many of them the virgin birth, the exclusivity of one God and the inspiration of scripture are all optional. There is also a large chunk of christians polled who do not read the scriptures, spend little to no time in prayer nor do they give much of their resources away. For those of us in these camps, Jesus might be saying, “You’re heading in the wrong direction. The kingdom of God is the other way.”
In the west (in particular) a kind of spirituality has emerged by focusing on a wonderful truth outside its original wonderful context. We have embraced the gospel outside the context of the kingdom of God. We have embraced God Incarnate as our perfect sacrifice who died and secured heaven for us but we have paid little attention to the Son of Man, who lived not just as our ticket to heaven, but rather as as the example of how we are to live now on earth. With our expectations and faith calibrated on the sweet by and by, the kingdom of God is being overshot and unexplored.
N.T. Wright, somewhat of a modern C.S. Lewis, explains our overshooting. He points out that we have skipped (in the gospels) from Bethlehem straight to Calvary with very little emphasis on Jesus in the Galilean countryside. Jesus came as a baby and died as a man and we will see Him some day in heaven. And, need I say, the sooner the better! His point is that we have gutted the good news of its emphasis if we skip from the new birth to life after death. When Jesus announced that, in Him, the kingdom of God had come and that it was in fact within us, He was saying we too are called to set captives free, to heal the sick, to cast out demons and relieve the oppressed. 1 John 4:17 says… as He is so also are we in this world. The Message says—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. Those who think of heaven as starting when they die overshoot the foretelling words of Jesus about His kingdom…
The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it.
When Jesus teaches us to pray, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, so many of us leap forward to a time when our flesh is no more when really Jesus mandated us to pray that His kingdom will be revealed as a bright radiating light now while still in our flesh just as it had with Him when He lived as the Son of Man in His flesh.
I think those rulers and powers and those spiritual forces of wickedness that Paul referred to in Ephesians 6 are going to be in shock and awe when the Church puts on the fuller armor of God that includes a kingdom-now weapons-grade gospel. I believe the battle will become a route when the saints take up the divinely powerful sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God) and destroy the lofty half- truths that exalt themselves above the fuller kingdom-knowledge of God.
We see the battle for this earth as lost because we view it from the wrong perspective – with our natural eyes. Could it be that when God answers our prayer that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven that the true Church (that Barna’s polls cannot isolate) will destroy the existing fortresses of our vain earth-bound imaginations about christianity? From Christ’s vantage point (and ours, as we are now seated with Him in heaven) its a matter of exposing and repenting of the half -gospel we have embraced and taking that deficient thought (or lie) captive and converting it to the obedience of Christ’s kingdom reality.
Father, make your enemies as footstool beneath your feet and shod ours afresh with the exceedingly good news of a gospel full of Your kingdom. Before the eyes of the skeptical world (and church), may our lives validate the now-proclamations of Your realm! May they see us loving You with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as we love ourselves. And….may our ears hear You say, “Well done. You have arrived! Welcome to the kingdom of God.” In Jesus majestic Name. So be it!