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Something I read in my daily quiet time this morning stopped me; so much so that I had to look up the verse in another translation just to be sure I was reading what I thought I was reading. I was. It was in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16, verses 20-21.

“Asked by the Pharasees when the Kingdom of God would come, he (Jesus) said in reply, ‘The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce ‘Look here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

Why did it stop me? I’ve read this verse before and just kept right on reading. Not today. Today, it occurred to me that I’ve held in my mind a different idea of the coming of the Kingdom of God. In my mind’s eye, I equate the coming of the Kingdom of God with the coming of Christ and revelation and rapture and the picture in my head is a violent one and also majestic. In any case, it is most definitely – or was in my mind – a moment in time and most certainly observable.

Thinking about it now, I don’t think these impressions are wrong. I just wonder if I haven’t confused or combined two different events or ideas. The coming of the Kingdom of God is one thing, perhaps; the second coming of Christ is another. This is something I will study further and welcome your comments on to help me see more clearly.

But now, after further study of the Kingdom of God, I do understand this more clearly. The Kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:15). As in, right now!

Before today, I think I’ve read that to mean, it could happen any minute now. God will bring his Kingdom to bear on this world at any moment and so we need to be ready. But actually, the Kingdom is among us….now.

As we let the the Lord into our hearts, we become a part of the Kingdom. It’s not a fireworks and fanfare occasion yet the change is dramatic (even if you don’t feel or see it) and subsequently reverberates throughout our world. When we ask Jesus to be our savior, he saves us, right then and there. And the world is changed forever; the Kingdom of God grows a little larger.

Michael Morrison in his post “The Present and Future Kingdom of God” helped me understand. He writes, “When Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God, he used a phrase the people knew, but he was giving it a different meaning. He told Nicodemus that God’s kingdom was invisible to most people (John 3:3) – to understand or experience it, a person must be renewed by God’s Spirit (verse 6).”

Each of us can choose to be a part of God’s Kingdom. Many of us already have. And when we did, everything changed. Immediately. We aren’t to sit around and wait for something to happen. It’s not as though we bought our ticket and we just have to go about our lives until the Jesus train comes to get us. We are the Kingdom. Jesus is the King. He already saved us. So, what are we doing with that?

If we cannot answer the question; if we say we are Christians because we trust in Jesus; because we’ve asked Him to be our savior, we are already saved from this world. We’ve nothing to fear from it. We are of the Kingdom and we might just need to ask the Lord a question.

Now what? You are my King…today. How can I serve you, Lord?

 

There are a few people in my life who have the uncanny ability to set me off. Some of them are (thankfully) only occasionally part of my days. But in truth, some of the people who have the greatest propensity to get my goat are the people I love the most.

It took (at least) 40 years but it did finally occur to me that there really is wisdom in holding your tongue. The wisdom, though, isn’t necessarily in what you don’t say as much as what you do in the quiet. Check out this insight from Psalm 62:5-6.

“For God alone, o my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.”

We all have people in our lives who have the ability to shake us up. And when it happens, we tend to spew sass that we wish we could take back. So often, this kind of anger is rooted in some sort of hurt: a strike to our pride; a blow that may or may not hit close to some truth.

Part of the problem is we mistakenly look to human beings for reassurance of our value – our contributions at home, in the office, as mothers and wives; husbands and sons. In doing this, we set ourselves up for hurt when the inevitable happens. When a teenager spouts hatred or a colleague lays blame, it strikes our prideful hearts. After all, we are doing our best right? And the thanks we get is an attack?

Why bother if they aren’t even going to appreciate us?

“for my hope is in Him.”

God alone is our rock. He alone has eyes to see the true intentions of our hearts. And He does see. God knows you’re working hard at being your best. And, He knows if maybe, just maybe, you need a little extra practice being patient. He even knows if you need to develop your habit of looking to Him for all your needs and affirmations.

God knows. So rest in that. Let Him be your fortress when the inevitable attacks come.

“Wait in silence.”

There is SO MUCH wisdom in these three small words.

Imagine the scene. Your wife is tired and ranting about the garbage again. You got a scathing email from an angry customer. Your daughter is having a fit because you said no to a date.

“Wait in silence.”

James tells us that anger does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20). So wait in silence.

I believe when we practice this mental and verbal constraint; when we bridle our tongues and guard our thoughts and wait in silence, we are casting evil out and running to God. We look to God for our protection and strength and in that brief moment we choose righteousness. We find our fortress. We are not shaken. God wins.

Sometimes I wonder what it really means to attain a higher standard of living. I think most of us when we hear the phrase  immediately think of a nice neighborhood with strict rules that keep the lawns well manicured (we live in one of those neighborhoods and often I find myself rather irritated with all those rules!). Perahps a higher standard of living means you drive a new car every few years, vacation regularly and keep your closet stocked with the latest fashions. Yes, I believe that’s probably how the world would define it…the developed world, at least.

But how does God define it? What is His idea of a higher standard of living?

Romans 6:17-18 got me thinking about this. It also has me feeling so incredibly grateful that the Lord opened my eyes to a new standard. More than that, God changed my heart and honestly, the implications have been profound. Here’s the verse:

“But, thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”

I love the phrase, “have become obedient from the heart.” Our heart’s desire, you might say, is to be obedient to Christ’s teachings; we seek to honor, serve and glorify the Lord with our actions, our words…even our thoughts. We hope to hear and heed the instructions from our advocate, the Holy Spirit…and the fruits of the Spirit are nothing short of amazing. Galatians 5:22-23 reminds us:

“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law.”

I think perhaps this is the new standard given us by Christ – by which we can measure our lives. The state of our emotions and the quality of our relationships as Christians can and should be measured by these fruits. In this way, we can know when we are with Christ and when we might be just a tad off course.

When we are feeling anger instead of love; anxious rather than peaceful; spiteful rather than kind…we should probably considered if we have wavered; if we’ve let our standards fall beneath Christ’s high calling. And, when inevitably we find that we have, that’s exactly the time to cry out to the Lord to bring us back into line with Him.

Let me tell you, I do this OFTEN! Thank goodness the Lord never gets tired of pulling us back up.

Humbly, prayerfully and with hope and trust in the Lord, we can pray and ask the Lord to be our strength in this world and to bring us back to His higher standard of living.