The Near Kingdom
Matthew 3:1-2
"In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.'"
A couple weeks ago in our leadership meeting, we talked about the kingdom being 'near' and what that meant. I had never put much thought into this as I don't normally measure the kingdom of heaven being found here on Earth (because it should be in Heaven). We talked about how in the kingdom of heaven I think about streets paved with gold and absolute perfection without sickness and death. This might not be totally attainable as we are imperfect sinners, but this kingdom is near as we have the power of God flowing through us by the faith that we hold through our savior. Knowing that we have this power available to us and that the kingdom is so near shouldn't we be living drastically different daily lives? This is what Charlie talked to us about and it absolutely blew my mind!
I talked about an experience that I had when I went down to Nicaragua with Josh and stayed at a surf camp led by a Christian guy who I viewed as kind of loopy because he went out and had story after story of people that he has gone to see and healed through the power of Jesus. In our leadership meeting Charlie asked me, "why do we view this as weird behavior? Shouldn't this be what we do on a regular basis?"
This just got the gears going and caused me to rethink a lot of other misled thoughts that I may have had about other people I have encountered throughout my life. This is powerful stuff and have been dwelling on this for the past couple of weeks now and hope to tackle life differently because of it.
Pray that your life and actions this week can radically be altered because the kingdom is near!!!
-Tim
"In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.'"
A couple weeks ago in our leadership meeting, we talked about the kingdom being 'near' and what that meant. I had never put much thought into this as I don't normally measure the kingdom of heaven being found here on Earth (because it should be in Heaven). We talked about how in the kingdom of heaven I think about streets paved with gold and absolute perfection without sickness and death. This might not be totally attainable as we are imperfect sinners, but this kingdom is near as we have the power of God flowing through us by the faith that we hold through our savior. Knowing that we have this power available to us and that the kingdom is so near shouldn't we be living drastically different daily lives? This is what Charlie talked to us about and it absolutely blew my mind!
I talked about an experience that I had when I went down to Nicaragua with Josh and stayed at a surf camp led by a Christian guy who I viewed as kind of loopy because he went out and had story after story of people that he has gone to see and healed through the power of Jesus. In our leadership meeting Charlie asked me, "why do we view this as weird behavior? Shouldn't this be what we do on a regular basis?"
This just got the gears going and caused me to rethink a lot of other misled thoughts that I may have had about other people I have encountered throughout my life. This is powerful stuff and have been dwelling on this for the past couple of weeks now and hope to tackle life differently because of it.
Pray that your life and actions this week can radically be altered because the kingdom is near!!!
-Tim
Thanks for this Tim!
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