Thy Kingdom Come

[psalms 91]

We are to be in the likeness of Christ if more were then the kingdonm would indeed be here

 

[Brighten04]

OK, The Kingdom Of Heaven/God is within us. How do we get born again believers to believe that? How do we get believers to recognize the Kingdom of Heaven/God within them. I hear more push back on the idea than a little. People do not understand that the Church is the Body of Christ or what that even means. And ,they do not understand their place in the body.

 

[Alithis]

OK, The Kingdom Of Heaven/God is within us. How do we get born again believers to believe that? How do we get believers to recognize the Kingdom of Heaven/God within them. I hear more push back on the idea than a little. People do not understand that the Church is the Body of Christ or what that even means. And ,they do not understand their place in the body.

as you say .. the church is the body and the church therefore ..is the kings living realm . born againt christians already get this . the problem lays with "sunday churched " attendees.

 

[tango]

So, when we poray Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven, what exactly are we praying? Sometimes things are more easily said than done.

I guess it all starts with us.

If I pray to God "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done" the first place to expect change is within myself. If I'm not willing to do God's will freely, what gives me any right to impose my understanding of God's will on someone else? If I'm not willing to be the face of Jesus to the people around me, why should I expect anyone else to do it? Jesus gave some pretty clear instructions - go into the world and preach the gospel, love one another as I have loved you, etc. If I'm not willing to comply with the unambiguous instructions that Jesus gave I can't really be surprised if God essentially responds to my prayers with "well, go on then, you know what needs to be done".

 

[Brighten04]

as you say .. the church is the body and the church therefore ..is the kings living realm . born againt christians already get this . the problem lays with "sunday churched " attendees.

I am sorry, I don't get your meaning.

 

[tango]

I am sorry, I don't get your meaning.

I may be wrong here, but I read it as meaning that the church is God's people as a collective rather than a building where people happen to go on a Sunday morning.

There are the people out there who regard "worship" as meaning nothing more than "the songs we sing on a Sunday morning" and then, after giving God his allotted hour-and-a-half from 1030-1200 on Sunday morning they figure they've done their worship for the week and can get busy with their regular life, and if you saw the 166.5 hours every week that they aren't wearing their Sunday finest in an old building you might never know they were Christians at all. And then there are those who realise that "worship" isn't just about singing songs in church and even if they don't happen to set foot in a church building for a couple of weeks it's still clear from their lives that they belong to God.

I remember having a discussion a few years ago with a Christian woman whose husband wasn't a Christian. She, and a few of her friends, talked as if a crucial activity was to get him into the church building by pretty much whatever means necessary. The way they talked you'd have thought God was all-powerful within the four walls of the church but the minute someone stepped over the threshold into the Big Bad World they were immune and God was impotent to act. When God calls, he calls wherever someone is and whatever they are doing, and he can use just about anything to draw people to himself. In that regard I'm quite unusual because one of the people who gave me a good kick towards God was Professor Richard Dawkins, author of (among other books) The God Delusion.

 

[Full O Beans]

When God calls, he calls wherever someone is and whatever they are doing, and he can use just about anything to draw people to himself. In that regard I'm quite unusual because one of the people who gave me a good kick towards God was Professor Richard Dawkins, author of (among other books) The God Delusion.

That is quite amazing! I would love to hear how that came about!

 

[tango]

That is quite amazing! I would love to hear how that came about!

The long version is pretty long, the short version is that at the time God was calling louder and louder and I was desperately trying to resist. I really hoped The God Delusion would give me some well considered reasoning that would shoot down the claims of Christianity (especially given the obvious academic credentials of a professor) but even as a relatively uneducated (I only have one degree, I don't know how many Prof Dawkins has) it was clear that his book was little more than a poorly thought through rant. Part of my thought process was that if one of the supposedly greatest atheist minds out there couldn't come up with anything better than The God Delusion to counter the claims of Christianity they may be worth considering in more detail.

I keep meaning to write to the professor to thank him for his efforts. I suspect he wouldn't appreciate my letter....

 

[Brighten04]

as you say .. the church is the body and the church therefore ..is the kings living realm . born againt christians already get this . the problem lays with "sunday churched " attendees.

What do you mean by this?

 

[Brighten04]

I may be wrong here, but I read it as meaning that the church is God's people as a collective rather than a building where people happen to go on a Sunday morning.

There are the people out there who regard "worship" as meaning nothing more than "the songs we sing on a Sunday morning" and then, after giving God his allotted hour-and-a-half from 1030-1200 on Sunday morning they figure they've done their worship for the week and can get busy with their regular life, and if you saw the 166.5 hours every week that they aren't wearing their Sunday finest in an old building you might never know they were Christians at all. And then there are those who realise that "worship" isn't just about singing songs in church and even if they don't happen to set foot in a church building for a couple of weeks it's still clear from their lives that they belong to God.

I remember having a discussion a few years ago with a Christian woman whose husband wasn't a Christian. She, and a few of her friends, talked as if a crucial activity was to get him into the church building by pretty much whatever means necessary. The way they talked you'd have thought God was all-powerful within the four walls of the church but the minute someone stepped over the threshold into the Big Bad World they were immune and God was impotent to act. When God calls, he calls wherever someone is and whatever they are doing, and he can use just about anything to draw people to himself. In that regard I'm quite unusual because one of the people who gave me a good kick towards God was Professor Richard Dawkins, author of (among other books) The God Delusion.

Thanks for this insight, I know what you are talking about here. God in the eyes of many believers today is weak and the preacher is all powerful. NOT! I find it interesting that God used Dawkins to bring you to Jesus.

 

[Brighten04]

The long version is pretty long, the short version is that at the time God was calling louder and louder and I was desperately trying to resist. I really hoped The God Delusion would give me some well considered reasoning that would shoot down the claims of Christianity (especially given the obvious academic credentials of a professor) but even as a relatively uneducated (I only have one degree, I don't know how many Prof Dawkins has) it was clear that his book was little more than a poorly thought through rant. Part of my thought process was that if one of the supposedly greatest atheist minds out there couldn't come up with anything better than The God Delusion to counter the claims of Christianity they may be worth considering in more detail.

I keep meaning to write to the professor to thank him for his efforts. I suspect he wouldn't appreciate my letter....

Quite interesting. No, I don't believe he would appreciate your letter.

 

[Brighten04]

I guess it all starts with us.

If I pray to God "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done" the first place to expect change is within myself. If I'm not willing to do God's will freely, what gives me any right to impose my understanding of God's will on someone else? If I'm not willing to be the face of Jesus to the people around me, why should I expect anyone else to do it? Jesus gave some pretty clear instructions - go into the world and preach the gospel, love one another as I have loved you, etc. If I'm not willing to comply with the unambiguous instructions that Jesus gave I can't really be surprised if God essentially responds to my prayers with "well, go on then, you know what needs to be done".

Yes most definitely it starts with us. But somehow there is (I don't know what to call it) maybe a disconnect with what we say and what we do. The old hymn Lord Send A Revival and let it begin with me comes to mind. What is revival to a Christian? The church at Ephesus lost it's first love and was admonished to do the things it did at first.

Rev. 2:2 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;

2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:

3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

 

[Full O Beans]

The long version is pretty long, the short version is that at the time God was calling louder and louder and I was desperately trying to resist. I really hoped The God Delusion would give me some well considered reasoning that would shoot down the claims of Christianity (especially given the obvious academic credentials of a professor) but even as a relatively uneducated (I only have one degree, I don't know how many Prof Dawkins has) it was clear that his book was little more than a poorly thought through rant. Part of my thought process was that if one of the supposedly greatest atheist minds out there couldn't come up with anything better than The God Delusion to counter the claims of Christianity they may be worth considering in more detail.

I keep meaning to write to the professor to thank him for his efforts. I suspect he wouldn't appreciate my letter....

God is so good at meeting us right where we are! If we want an intellectual argument or excuse, He will meet us on a spiritual level but with an intellectual thrust. His truth shoots down all such arguments! He is a God of excellence!

Thank you for sharing that.

 

[tango]

Thanks for this insight, I know what you are talking about here. God in the eyes of many believers today is weak and the preacher is all powerful. NOT! I find it interesting that God used Dawkins to bring you to Jesus.

Yep, and sometimes seeing churches use what can only really be described as bait-and-switch tactics really makes me cringe. One thing I liked about my previous church was that they held some events that weren't specifically about evangelism but were about inviting friends with a common interest to come and hang out. For example one day they showed a big soccer game on the projector screen so people could invite their friends to come and watch the match. I'm not really into watching sport so I don't know how many actually did come along, but that sort of thing never troubled me. If anything it lets people realise that Christians still have hobbies and interests beyond spending all day with their noses in the Bible. Before I was a Christian I went (somewhat unwittingly) to a couple of events that were billed as one thing but turned into little more than a bit of padding before the unexpected sermon.

 

[tango]

Yes most definitely it starts with us. But somehow there is (I don't know what to call it) maybe a disconnect with what we say and what we do. The old hymn Lord Send A Revival and let it begin with me comes to mind. What is revival to a Christian? The church at Ephesus lost it's first love and was admonished to do the things it did at first.

I think it's very easy to get into the habit of praying for problems rather than looking to solve them. As James put it, if we see someone who is cold and hungry it doesn't help them to say "be warm, be filled" and in the modern day church-speak it doesn't help them if we push them back out into the cold with the soothing words "I'll pray for you". It helps them a lot to let them sit by the fire and feed them.

I remember years ago I was in a prayer meeting where someone presented a problem for prayer and as I was praying about it, it was as if God said clearly "what are you asking me for, you could fix this". That was a bit of a surprise at the time, but the simple reality was that I had the means at my disposal to make that particular problem go away. And as it happened when I looked into how to make the problem go away, it went away without me having to put much into it at all.

When I string together things Jesus said, such as "what you did/did not for the least of these you did/did not for me", "love one another as I have loved you" and the parable of the Good Samaritan, then look at what James wrote about pure and undefiled religion being to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and remain unspotted from the world I do sometimes wonder whether whole sections of the church today have completely missed the point. Sometimes it appears that people think that as long as they said the sinner's prayer and show up to church regularly they'll be fine, even if they spend two hours every week acting really holy and 166 hours every week acting no differently to the people around them, while at the same time patting themselves on the back that they "get it" and the people who don't obviously worship Jesus but show the love he described "don't get it". Throw in James 2:17 that essentially says faith without works is dead, and it doesn't bode well for the people who show up to church wearing their Sunday finest, gush in generic terms to say nothing more than "great sermon, vicar" and then get back to living a life indistinguishable from those around them.

 

[tango]

God is so good at meeting us right where we are! If we want an intellectual argument or excuse, He will meet us on a spiritual level but with an intellectual thrust. His truth shoots down all such arguments! He is a God of excellence!

Thank you for sharing that.

In that particular case it wasn't a particularly obvious spiritual meeting with an intellectual thrust, it was just a sense of seeing right through the arguments presented as intellectual objections and seeing how they just fell apart.

ETA: Looking back there was definitely a spiritual input, given I wouldn't expect to be able to challenge the reasoning of a world-renowned professor as effortlessly as I did the evening I read his book. It just wasn't apparent to me at the time.

 

[Brighten04]

Yep, and sometimes seeing churches use what can only really be described as bait-and-switch tactics really makes me cringe. One thing I liked about my previous church was that they held some events that weren't specifically about evangelism but were about inviting friends with a common interest to come and hang out. For example one day they showed a big soccer game on the projector screen so people could invite their friends to come and watch the match. I'm not really into watching sport so I don't know how many actually did come along, but that sort of thing never troubled me. If anything it lets people realise that Christians still have hobbies and interests beyond spending all day with their noses in the Bible. Before I was a Christian I went (somewhat unwittingly) to a couple of events that were billed as one thing but turned into little more than a bit of padding before the unexpected sermon.

I belonged to a wonderful fellowship a few years ago where we did all sorts of things corporately. We went out to eat together, to movies together, visited from house to house,helped each other (moving, painting,fixing wells, ,building fences,etc). The church I attend now is not as close knit as that one was. But it is the love that distinguished the Acts 2 church. Now I have to admit that I love spending time with my nose in the Bible and in prayer, but it is usually early in the morning. I don't know how much American sports you get to see there in London but we recently held the Superbowl football game. A lot of churches hosted viewings. I wonder if they were anything like what you described. But, does the Kingdom of Heaven need gimmicks to attract people to it ? Does it not have enough merit of it's own?

 

[Alithis]

I belonged to a wonderful fellowship a few years ago where we did all sorts of things corporately. We went out to eat together, to movies together, visited from house to house,helped each other (moving, painting,fixing wells, ,building fences,etc). The church I attend now is not as close knit as that one was. But it is the love that distinguished the Acts 2 church. Now I have to admit that I love spending time with my nose in the Bible and in prayer, but it is usually early in the morning. I don't know how much American sports you get to see there in London but we recently held the Superbowl football game. A lot of churches hosted viewings. I wonder if they were anything like what you described. But, does the Kingdom of Heaven need gimmicks to attract people to it ? Does it not have enough merit of it's own?

no

 

[Alithis]

when we measure a preacher's success and effectiveness by the balance of the offerings -we have utterly lost site of the kingdom of God

 

[Brighten04]

Do you believe the Kingdom of Heaven is made manifest only by the mundane, or, should the citizens walk in the supernatural as the Acts 2 church did?