Kingdom Principles — Part 6: Kingdom Epilogue
Summary
I have finished my odyssey through the Kingdom of God. In this post I share two thoughts. First, apart from life in the Kingdom of God we do not have the indwelling Holy Spirit — the power to wage war against the enemies of mankind and God. We cannot know victory without the Spirit of Christ. Second, apart from life in the Kingdom of God we do not have the capacity or capability to love as Jesus commanded us to love — with Agape love. Jesus came full of grace and truth, or put it another way full of generosity and orthodoxy. Orthodoxy without generosity is nothing — it is legalism. But generosity without orthodoxy is worse than nothing — it is humanism, another form of idolatry widely found in the western Church today. Generosity (aka grace or agape love) is only found in the Kingdom of God because this love is Jesus and Jesus is the Kingdom. Oh boy, too complicated . . .
Wow! I have written a book on the Kingdom of God. I am ready to move on to some other topics. I guess you would call this post my summary. I have written what I believe God called me to write about His Kingdom — about 20 posts. I haven’t perfectly written them. If I did it again I might change a few posts.
Not that this is the last time I will mention the Kingdom of God. After all, this is a blog about Jesus and His plan of restoration. That means — the Kingdom of God. But this is probably the last post that will explicitly define and describe the Kingdom for a while.
Here is what I have learned. The Kingdom of God is a tangible reality, but not in the way the world thinks. It is not a material, scientific reality. And so, many people in our American culture dominated by scientism, including many Christians, will not believe in the Kingdom. It is a spiritual reality that has a material impact in the physical world. Jesus is the door into the Kingdom of God. We enter through repentance and faith in Him. More than that, Jesus is the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the “way and the truth and the life”, just like the Kingdom. Apart from Jesus, there is no Kingdom. When we deny the Kingdom, we deny Jesus in all of His manifestations. And Scripture says, “no one comes to the Father (that is, into His Kingdom) apart from Jesus”. Not a popular idea in our pluralistic culture.
The Kingdom is also a future reality, but if we deny the present reality of the Kingdom we deny the presence and power of God in our lives, today.
There are only two kingdoms — the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world — and everyone lives in a kingdom. We must choose to live in one or the other; we cannot have dual citizenship. When we live in the kingdom of the world, we live in a subset of that kingdom where we are the king. This is the kingdom of self. The man or woman who lives in the Kingdom of God receives Kingdom gifts, although not perfectly: the indwelling Holy Spirit, peace and joy, continual transformation, and power and authority. There is spiritual, emotional, and physical healing in the Kingdom of God. We are not healed because we experience more peace and joy in the Kingdom. We are healed by the power of God. Kingdom people are consecrated people who witness miracles, sometimes daily.
The lives of those who live in the Kingdom of self are generally the opposite of Kingdom lives. Fear, anxiety, unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment, hopelessness, and despair are typical in the life of a man or woman living in the kingdom of self, no matter how good they look on the outside. Life in the kingdom of self is a powerless life, at least with respect to the real world — the supernatural world of the unseen real.
We enter the Kingdom of God by God’s grace, through the gifts of repentance and faith, and our choice. We can reject the Kingdom.
John wrote about Jesus “In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. And the Light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it, put it out or absorbed it or appropriated it, and is unreceptive to it” (John 1: 4, 5 AMP). This is Jesus and His Kingdom breaking today into the kingdom of the world — light breaking into darkness.
A few verses later John writes, “We actually saw His glory (His honor, His majesty), such glory as an only begotten son receives from his father, full of grace (favor, loving kindness) and truth” (John 1: 14 AMP).
Jesus came, full of truth and full of grace. This does not just mean that Jesus came telling the truth and exhibiting grace. It means that He is Truth and He is Grace. And in the same way the Kingdom of God, the rule and reign of Christ in our lives and the world, is Truth and Grace.
I have written of the Kingdom as a place — a well-watered garden. Not a physical place, but a place within our hearts. Or maybe a better way to say it is Jesus is the well-watered garden. As we live in Him and He in us we are like trees whose leaves are always green and never fail to bear fruit. Hallelujah!
To a great extent, in these writings I have focused on the Truth side of Jesus, although when one writes about the Kingdom, one is also writing about Grace. The truth is that we cannot enter the Kingdom apart from repenting of life in the kingdom of self. This is a hard truth for many to receive. But it is the truth. How can we enter into Jesus and He into us if we continue to worship something other than Him?
I read an author (I can’t remember who) who rephrased ‘full of truth and grace’ like this: “Jesus came full of orthodoxy and full of generosity”. The author went on to say, “Orthodoxy without generosity is nothing, but generosity without orthodoxy is worse than nothing”. It is worse than nothing because it becomes idolatry.
Orthodoxy without generosity is legalism. It is destructive. It is not Christ. Some probably see what I have written about the Kingdom of God as legalism. I don’t agree because in all that I have written I always mention the gift of repentance, which is grace. I believe I have spoken the truth about what it takes to enter the Kingdom of God — choice, faith, and repentance; giving up the right to yourself, continuing to crucify your self life, surrendering and submitting to Jesus, and going wherever, and saying and doing whatever He tells you. The truth is that life in the Kingdom of God is abundant life and salvation, now and forever.
True, I have not made the loving kindness of God the theme of my Kingdom writing in the way many Christians are used to hearing it. This is partly because I think the message of the gospel has been skewed over the last 50 years or so toward grace or love and away from truth. I believe that this tendency has resulted in a human-centered religion that has left many Christians confused at best and outside the Kingdom at worst. If orthodoxy without generosity is legalism, generosity without orthodoxy is humanism. In one website humanism is defined as:
“An outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems”.
There is no power in this philosophy. In our human power we cannot triumph over this fallen world. We are living in a world at war; a war between the two kingdoms. The war is all around us. Satan is continually assaulting our hearts, minds, and spirits; also our relationships, homes, neighborhoods, and nations. Has the face of evil ever been better defined in these turbulent times? Without the power and authority of God and the Holy Spirit within us to defeat the enemy, humans will always be on the defensive at best and defeated at worst.
I think the dominant message of the western Church today is grace and love. God loves you, God loves the world, and God is love. All true.. But untethered from Truth, we enter into a place of self-sufficiency and ultimately self-worship that is devoid of the type of love that Jesus exemplified and called us to share. Love alone will not get anyone into the Kingdom of God. It is, as I have said before, necessary but not sufficient. The life of Jesus clearly demonstrates that we cannot be His followers without walking this delicate balance between truth and grace — we cannot have His Kingdom life without both.
When Jesus called us to “love each other as I have loved you”, He was not talking about the type of love the world mostly understands. That love is Eros. Eros love says “I will love you as long as you give me what I want, need, or desire. If you challenge me, make me uncomfortable, fail to fulfill my expectations, or stop meeting my needs, whatever they are, I will stop loving you” or vice versa. How many of us love someone because they give us what we need, including the acceptance that makes us feel good about ourselves? Don’t we ‘love’ the people who agree with us more than those who don’t? It is love based on behavior; it is an earned love. It often reduces the beloved to an object. This is the nature of love between people outside of the Kingdom of God because it is the ‘love’ of a fallen humanity. It is also too commonly our model for how we see God loving us.
God’s love is Agape love because He is (agape) Love. The Father loves us because that is what He is, not because of what we have done. That is the love Jesus talks about – where Jesus is, there is Agape love because Agape love is Jesus. Jesus is the Kingdom; therefore the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Agape love. Apart from life in the Kingdom of God, a man or woman cannot be filled with, or release Agape love into the world. Kingdom love flows from the Father’s nature and that nature is agape love.
We cannot love one another selflessly, we cannot love our enemies, and we cannot love our neighbor as Jesus intended us to love them apart from the Kingdom of God. And the truth is we cannot enter the Kingdom of God apart from the decisions and sacrifices I mentioned above. Humanism, by definition, is a philosophy or a religion lived in the kingdom of the world, in human power and human principles, and therefore with Eros love. When the Church stresses love apart from the Kingdom, it is not calling people to love with the Love of Christ, but with an Eros love.
If we try to love apart from Truth (and truth) we release into the world a love largely without sacrifice, without service, without commitment, without the power to transform, and a love without accountability. We turn love into a form of worship, thinking that because we love we are following Jesus. He told us to love one another, right? Yes, but not this way. Eros love is about us, not about Him. Jesus is the love God wants the world to know.
We are the ones commanded to release Jesus into the world. I cannot release what I do not have within me. And I cannot be filled with Jesus apart from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit only dwells in the heart of a Kingdom man or woman. How can Jesus dwell in the heart of a person living in the kingdom of self when they are sitting on the throne of their own kingdom; where Jesus is not wanted or needed. You know that He rarely goes where He is not invited.
Too many people in the Church have made love their god. It is the easy way out. Instead of speaking the truth, which is offensive to many, we will just love them into the Kingdom. That won’t work. There is no entrance into the Kingdom apart from denying self, which is repenting; crucifying self, and placing self under the authority of Another. There is no Kingdom life without death, death of self. Who wants to hear that? But it is the Truth.
That does not mean that we don’t love people. We do. Truth without love will not get them into the Kingdom either. We must always speak and demonstrate the truth with love. Truth and grace/love — they cannot be separated. It is a life and death matter.
Those are my final thoughts about the ‘truth’ of the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Sometime in the next week I’ll move on to write about Hesed — the loving kindness of God. Too many of us have the wrong impression about the character and nature of our Father.
Friends, be blessed today. If God is leading you, repent and receive the Kingdom of God. You will never be the same.
Grace and peace
John