The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. (Isaiah 61:1-3)
If I were the writer of children’s books or materials, I would embed an idea in those materials that I believe would help commission a new generation of kingdom citizen warriors. The idea would be born from Jesus own words…
By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 1 John 4:17
This phrase; “So also are we in this world” if planted and nurtured in the precious dark loam of a child’s heart, would grow and naturally link “God so loved the world” with “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” As the seed germinates and finds its way up into the air and sunlight of God’s kingdom a new vision will be formed; the plant (an Oak I suspect) would have new eyes to see and new ears to hear.
When the seed that was planted in many of us sprouted it seemed to mostly just see the Incarnation and the Resurrection, leaving us with a vision stripped of all that was between those two events which was the astonishing life of God that Jesus lived as our model. After our rebirth as God’s children our discounted vision has accommodated the notion that our religious service of worship will consist mostly of being grateful for the two primary tenants of the faith and expressing that through church attendance and involvement (if you are a zealot).
The DNA of this seed dictates a vision of discipleship that essentially means replanting this same seed in as many souls as possible. Discipleship comes to mean doing all the things necessary to prevent souls from damnation so they are preserved for either the rapture or heaven after they die. Note; This high calling is then typically entrusted to a few called (or anointed) individuals.
Back to the seed planted in the fertile loam of the childlike kingdom heart. Here an identity will take shape that says to itself, “as Jesus is, so also am I in this world.” If this heart happens to find itself in a place where the seed has been stripped somehow of the “as He is, so also are we in this world-DNA strand, it will not be able to make sense of what it is seeing. It will say, salvation was not just a past-tense, moment-in-time experience, rather it is a moment by moment affair that is taking place everywhere its roots can spread. Its kingdom focused senses will wonder why there are mostly just professional Christians who feel called to full-time ministry and so many others who just observe. The childlike kingdom heart will look at this scene and conclude the army is mostly just sitting around in the barracks.
However, the greatest shock for the kingdom heart will be caused by how little relevance and connection those with the mic make between Jesus’ life (lived between the Incarnation and the Ascension) and their own. Yes, some moral training will be strained out of the body of Jesus’ teachings but most (or all) of the implications of the gospel of the kingdom which is all about Jesus’ powerful and revolutionary life is not mentioned or it is reserved for the hereafter.
I had the privilege of hearing Thomas Ashcroft speak on Wednesday. He wrote Mansions of the Heart. In his book he reviews the evangelical tradition’s various takes on discipleship and graciously exposes how short it has come in it’s understanding of it. He also describes more fully what happens to believers when the kingdom seed is birthed in their hearts and they find their vision cannot be reconciled with that of Pastor. He offered simple, time proven milestones for disciples. What a refreshing, simplifying and clarifying word he spoke about discipleship!
Tom Ashbrook also offers a surprising pathway back to innocence and vision that might serve as a meeting place for institutional leaders and the kingdom hearts which are languishing inside the conventional models they oversee and possibly even those who have walked away from them. I say this because Tom had nothing to offer than Christ alone, the only common ground and hope that any of us really have. For the hope and vision which he deposited in the body of Christ in my faith community I am profoundly grateful. I pray he will visit us again and nourish the kingdom seeds whether they be dormant or living.
Father, I confess that I sometimes despair when I inventory all the disparate understandings of who you are and what you are doing and saying. Would you raise up those who can exercise their ministry of reconciliation not just between man and Yourself but between us, Your children, Come and be preeminent in our midst. Come and speak your healing words into Your fragmented body – making us the family and the army you destined us to be. Persist with us Father until we can corporately say with joyful confidence….
As He is, so also are we in this world. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon us, because the Lord has anointed us to be the good news to the afflicted; He has sent us to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. Then we will be called the oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
So be it.