Why Am I Writing All This Stuff on the Kingdom of God?

What is going on? I am not sure myself. All I know is that I have a burden to write everything I feel God is calling to me to say about the Kingdom of God. And it is a lot. It isn’t like this burden about the Kingdom suddenly popped up in my heart. Those of you who know me know that I have been teaching and talking about the KIngdom for several years.

The guy who messed me up the most is George Eldon Ladd. He published a book in 1959 that rocked my world. It is ‘The Gospel of the Kingdom — Popular Expositions on the Kingdom of God’ published by Eerdmans. It was this book that lit a fire in my heart for the KIngdom of God. The more books I read, the more the fire grew. And the more it grew, the more Scripture made sense to me within the context of the Kingdom. Just look at how much Jesus talked about the Kingdom. He even called it the Gospel of the Kingdom! What? Didn’t He know about the Gospel of Salvation?  Ladd didn’t make up that title — Jesus really said it.

More recently I read another book that filled in some of the detail that I needed for a more complete picture of the Kingdom of God. That book is ‘Repentance — The First Word of the Gospel‘ by Richard Owen Roberts published by Crossway. Another powerful book by a man I consider to be a modern-day Jeremiah.

There were many more books along the way and many hours of conversation with Joey, Jim, Bill, and Tom. Plus hundreds of hours of preparation for teaching and the teaching itself.

So, here I am with this burden; almost embarrassed about the amount of writing I am putting out and aware that part of what I am writing goes against the grain of what some pastors and theologians believe.

But, my burden is stronger than my embarrassment and anxiety (and this anxiety reveals unbelief in my own heart — something I need to bring to God and pray about). My burden is for the sake of the Kingdom, sure. But it is also for God’s people, who are all of us. It is for those who have never heard the Gospel of the Kingdom, who don’t even know there is a Kingdom, who believe that the life they are leading is all there is.

My burden is for those in the church who have never been told that to ‘accept’ Jesus without, at the same time, truly and sincerely repenting of life in the kingdom of self, does not guarantee salvation; who have never been told that life in the Kingdom of God is the real, abundant life of power, healing, and wholeness.

And my burden is for those, who like me, want to go deeper with the Lord in His Kingdom, but find themselves stuck in neutral. I have grown so much in the last month as I have written and prayed — I want to share what I have learned with the world.

That is my burden, or I should say “my burdens”. I apologize for the length of my posts. I try to cut back, but God keeps saying “No, I want you to leave that bit in.” Ok, God. I surrender.

I am, at the end of the day, writing this for God, at His direction, and for His Kingdom. I just hope I am hearing Him clearly. And He will bring the readers. That is His part of the bargain. And if not, that is ok, too. It only takes one.

From the ‘album’ “How Can It Be” by Lauren Daigle: “Here’s my heart, Lord. Speak what is True.”

PS. I woke up this morning with these words on my heart, so I added this Post Script to what I wrote last night.

I sense that the Kingdom is the starting place for an amazing journey for me. I have never been satisfied to see the things that are important to me through other people’s eyes and words. For some reason I am not content until I have expressed these things in my own words, seen them through the eyes of my heart and mind. Not that others’ words are unimportant — they are very important. I read a lot and try to absorb what I read. But I need to ponder these words, ask God the questions these words raise in my mind. Why, God?; what, God?; how, God? I know I will bump up against mystery —  things we are not meant to know, but in the meantime — What about the Cross, the Resurrection, the Ascension? How do these relate to the Kingdom of God?. I sense that the Kingdom was different after each of these events. But how? I don’t know, but someone does; and certainly God does. Maybe He’ll show me. Let the journey begin, at the beginning — the Kingdom.

PPS. Have you read ‘Genesis‘ by Walter Brueggemann? An amazing book about the foundation of everything. Here is a quote from that book about mystery. Writing about the story of God in Genesis, he says:

“This story, is rather, the anguished discernment that there is something about life which remains hidden and inscrutable and which will not be trampled upon by human power and knowledge. There are secrets about the human heart and the human community which must be honored, bowed before, and not exposed. That is becaue the gift of life in the human heart and in the human community is a mystery retained by God for Himself. It has not been put at the disposal of human ingenuity and human imagination” (pg 52).

I won’t, I can’t break this barrier. But God is calling me deeper into His heart, to know Him more, to share with me (with me! Amazing) the excitement and beauty of Him and His Creation. Brueggemann has described the limit to this journey. But I have a long way to go before I even get close to this limit, and before I do, I’ll be standing in front of Jesus and we can have a long talk. Or maybe none of this will matter to me then. Probably not.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me. Even though I don’t know who most of you are, knowing that you are there makes me feel connected to the Body of Christ. And that is important.

OK. Enough. This is how these posts grow so long. Last night this post was under 1000 words. Look at it now (1111).

God bless you. Keep the faith and lets ROCK the Kingdom. The world needs more crazy Christians.