Life in the Kingdom

Luke 12:32
Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.

Have you ever thought about the character of God? Have you ever attempted to define His attributes? Over the years I’ve read many articles where theologians, scholars, and other men and women of God have tried to describe who He is, what He is like. Usually the list looks something like this:

God is holy, righteous, just, merciful, loving, kind, omnipotent (He’s very strong), omniscient (He’s very smart), omnipresent (you can run but you can’t hide). It seems that the conclusion that most people draw from all this is that He’s loving and scary at the same time. We think He’s good, but many people are afraid to get too close.

In all my years as a believer, I’ve never heard anyone describe God as happy. In fact, for many of us, it seems incongruous to speak of God and happiness together. Somehow it seems indulgent. After all, running the universe is serious business.

The fact of the matter is, God is ecstatically happy. Heaven is one big party. The Bible tells us that God laughs, that He rejoices over us. Rom 14:17 says that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whenever one person accepts Jesus as Lord all of heaven rejoices. That means heaven is in a continual party state.

Fear, anxiety, worry depression all entered with the fall of man. They are not kingdom attributes. The early church was marked with joy. Depression is not a fruit of the spirit but joy is.

This is a big deal. We should be the happiest, most care free people on earth. Think about it. Our eternity is secured. There is nothing that can separate us from His love. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. He is with us always. The Holy Spirit dwells in us. That means that the joy of the Lord is always present inside of us.

John G. Lake said, “The triumph of the gospel is enough to make any man the wildest kind of enthusiastic optimist.”

If you really want to learn to be happy, start hanging out with The Happy One, otherwise known as God Almighty. You will both be glad you did.

In my last post, I spoke about how Jesus said that only one thing was necessary, that one thing being sitting at the feet of the Master and communing with Him. It stands to reason then, that our lives should truly be about that one thing. And if it is truly about that one thing, then why make it about anything else other than that one thing? If you make it about two or three things, then it’s not about one thing it’s about two or three. So which is it? Is it truly about one thing or not? And if it is truly about one thing what does that look like in real life. If you look at the life of Jesus His whole life wasn’t spent alone with the Father on a mountain. He spent time with people. He taught them, ate with them, prayed with them. Obviously there are activities associated with the life we are to live. So in practical terms, what does it mean to live a one thing lifestyle?

It means that everything you do is a direct result of your time with God. It means that you stop doing things for God. Instead you do things from God, meaning you do them as a byproduct of your relationship, your time with Him. This is what the Bible means when it says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who works within, to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil 2:12,13).

To do this you first have to spend time with God. You have to come to God without an agenda. Your only desire is to sit at His feet and spend time with Him. You don’t pick the subject, you don’t control the conversation. You sit and learn from the Master. It means you stop measuring your time with God based on the number of prayers you pray or the number of Bible chapters you read or any other artificial man made standard. It means you spend time in His presence simply because you love Him and it brings Him pleasure. You come as His child, His beloved son or daughter. You come in faith, knowing that your Father loves you dearly and that He won’t disappoint you. You come, knowing that He longs to meet with you, to have you sit on His lap so He can love you as only He can do. It is in these times that we get to know Him personally, deeply, intimately. It is in these times that we are changed from faith to faith, from glory to glory.

I remember listening to a message entitled “24 Ways to keep yourself in the will of God”. Frankly, the message depressed me. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to remember, let alone do all 24 things on a regular basis. The mere idea of trying to find the time to fit all 24 things into my day brought despair. I guess you could do one an hour if you didn’t sleep. I still don’t know how you can live like that.

The good news is that you don’t have to. God said that only one thing was needful. One thing. Not 24 or 12 or even 5 or 6. One thing. I know that sounds like it can’t be right, but it is. Take a look at Luke 10:38-42:

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, ” Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Only one thing is necessary. I didn’t say that, Jesus did. The one thing is to sit at His feet, spend time in His presence and hear what He has to say. Everything else flows from that.

Jesus Himself said that He only spoke what the Father taught Him. He only did what He saw His Father do. In other words, everything that Jesus did came out of His relationship with the Father.

What I have learned is that you have two options. The first is to spend time with the Father, do the one thing and live your life from that place of intimacy with God. The other option is to wear yourself out with a lot of activity in an attempt to compensate for your lack of time with the Father. One is a life of peace, joy and rest. The other is religion.

To choose the one thing you will have to force yourself to lay aside some of your activity, sit at the Master’s feet and wait patiently. When I first started, I struggled. I wasn’t good at getting quiet and waiting on Him. It was harder than I imagined, but I kept at it and it has transformed by walk with God. Make the one thing a priority and it will transform yours as well.

Did you ever think about what moves you, what motivates you?

Some people are moved by basic needs – food, water, shelter. Others are moved by their need for approval. Some are driven by a desire for success, possessions, power. Some are just trying to find a way for the pain to go away. Sometimes these people develop dependencies, addictions. They are then moved to satisfy those dependencies. But everyone is moved, is motivated by something.

Personally, I am moved by ice cream. If there is ice cream in the freezer, I hear it calling my name. Ice cream moves me from the comfort of my recliner to the freezer. Everyone is moved by something.

I was thinking about this in relation to Jesus. The Bible says that Jesus was “moved with compassion”. The love of God inside of Him moved Him.

In Matthew 14, He was moved with compassion and healed the sick.
In Mark 1, He was moved with compassion and cleansed the leper.
In Matthew 15, He was moved with compassion and miraculously fed four thousand.
In Matthew 20, the compassion of Jesus healed two blind men.
In Mark 5, the compassion of the Lord delivered the demon possessed man.
In Luke 7, Jesus had compassion on the widow woman and raised her son from the dead.

It’s clear from these examples that the compassion of God is not wimpy, it’s not mere sympathy. The compassion of God releases God’s power to bring deliverance, freedom to all in its path.

The Bible teaches us the the love of God has been poured out in our hearts. So if you have made Jesus your Lord, that same compassion that moved Jesus now lives in you. When you allow that compassion that is in you to move you, you will get the same results that Jesus did: sick people will be healed, oppressed people will be set free. The Spirit of God is in you to lead you and guide you. When you allow His compassion to lead you, it will take you to a place of miracles. It really is that simple. The love of God in action produces miracles.

I’m going to begin to implement a radical change. I’m going to live as if everything that God says is true. Everything He has revealed to me through the Word of God. Everything the Holy Spirit has shown me. Every revelation I’ve received. All of the impressions, thoughts I’ve received that I believe are from God. I have to stop keeping these things disconnected from the stress, the cares of everyday life.

I didn’t come to this conclusion through some vision, some revelation, some “aha” moment. Right now I’m feeling the opposite. My stomach is in a knot, I’m stressed about work, I’m upset over what my wife is dealing with at home with the aftermath of hurricane Sandy (I’m away on business). I’m doing this because I’m tired of living with the stress. It’s not necessary. What I have been doing isn’t working. When I get stressed I grab control and micro manage things. It may help get the immediate crisis solved but it leaves a trail of chaos, more stress, and unhappines in its wake.

So I start now. As of now I am going to be vigilant to stop worrying. This is a process. This is exerting my will even when my gut is in a knot. I will start with forgetting about work until Monday and trust God to work on it over the weekend. I am going to not worry about getting home despite the damage from hurricane Sandy. I am going to stop worrying about Joanie and the kids. Not because I don’t love them (which I do) but because it doesn’t do any good and God can take care of them. I am going to stop getting all worked up over what happens at work. Instead I am going to focus on what matters most. And what matters most is how I behave. Do I walk by faith? Do I walk in love? Do I trust the Holy Spirit who lives in me? These are the things that matter. The rest is His problem. It’s not that I don’t have faith, I do. I just haven’t been using it like I should.

This isn’t going to come without intention. I am going to have to practice this. There may be times when I don’t seem to do so well. None of that matters. What matters is that I keep going for if I don’t quit it has to work because God is faithful.

This is going to be fun.

I live on Long Island and as I write this, most everyone is preparing for hurricane Sandy which is due to hit us sometime Monday. I am on my way to Houston on business so I’m going to miss the excitement. On my way to the airport, I remarked to my wife that Sandy seemed like a wimpy name for a hurricane. I think hurricanes should have names like Vader or Attila, names which carry a sense of power and foreboding. The more intense the hurricane, the scarier the name. I think I’m on to something. Someone should call the National Weather Service on this. If we named a hurricane, “the Wrath of Khan” we wouldn’t have such a problem getting people to evacuate.

While I am kidding about naming hurricanes Attila, we make a much more serious mistake when we attribute hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. to God. Insurance policies even call these events Acts of God, implying that God is behind these destructive events. The Bible tells us that Jesus is the exact representation of God’s nature (Heb 1:3). In the Gospel of John, Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father. Jesus responds by saying, “I’ve been with you all this time and still you don’t get it? If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.” In other words, if you want to see what the Father is like, just look at Jesus. Jesus said that He only did the what He saw His Father do. So then, every act of Jesus was an act of the Father. This begs the question, how many storms did Jesus bless? How often did he respond to a sick person’s cry for help by telling them that their sickness was a blessing in disguise or that God was teaching him through this sickness?

Jesus in fact, never blessed a storm. However, He did speak peace to a few of them and they quieted right down. He never failed to heal anyone who came to Him for healing. He ruined every funeral He went to by raising the dead. This is the nature of God, not death and destruction. Acts of God are healing the sick, raising the dead, setting the oppressed free. Those are the acts of God because that is the nature of our Father in heaven.

You then may wonder where these calamities come from. That’s a question for another time. For now, rest in the fact that our Heavenly Father has only good in store for you. Jer 29:11 says, “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.” That is God’s will, God’s desire for you.

This is where it starts. At this present time in history there are about 7 billion people on planet earth. Based on my own experience on the internet, admittedly void of any scientific study, there may be as many as 5.5 billion blogs. That computes to 1 blog for every 1.27 people, which means that on average the only people reading this will be me and my dog, Sparky. Statistically speaking not even my wife of 34 years, my children, grandson, not even their dogs will read this. All of which begs the question, “Why would I bother to do this?”

Like everyone else, there are certain things in life which motivate me, that I am passionate about. I am a Christian so this blog will primarily be about walking with God. While I reserve the right to discuss other life altering topics such as the designated hitter rule, first and foremost I want to discuss my life with God.

Over my years as a Christian, one thing I have discovered is that God is good. Good, as in really, really good. Outrageously good. Better than you think He is. Heidi Baker, a missionary in Mozambique commented on how her seminary professor told her that God was not a Santa Claus. Her response was, “No, He’s much better.” This from a woman who lives in the poorest nation of the world.

God is good. He loves us and cares about us far more than we could imagine. The problem is that fears, hurts, religious rhetoric have all served to separate us from experiencing, encountering His love, His goodness.

My main purpose here is to discuss who He is and chronicle some of the things I have learned in experiencing this wonderful God.