"Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God . . . But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full." -- Jesus
How can the possession, ownership, rights to the kingdom of God be compared to or contrasted with receiving comfort in full? We know that rich people can enter into the kingdom, so what does it mean for the kingdom of God to be "yours?"
I think sometimes we think of the kingdom in too concrete or "boxed-in" terms. Jesus compared the kingdom to many very different things, events, actions, people and said that it is here, coming, in us and among us. How do you box that up? All this cannot be packaged into something so cut and dry as eternal salvation or "heaven." Yes, the kingdom is, in part, heaven, and it is salvation, but it is also so much more. Ushered in by grace and love and received by given faith, the Kingdom is a lifestyle of love, of faith, of good deeds, of striving to be perfectly holy like our Lord and Father--a radical new value system.
The kingdom of Heaven, of God, is here, now. It is today, this generation; the redeemed lifestyle of the redeemed, we live now with hope, and we LIVE! We live by faith with confident hope toward a future and perfect life that knows no death. The kingdom of God is a preview taste today of a beautiful life to be lived in full tomorrow. We all intuitively know that there is something better--heaven, a kingdom--in another life to come, but Jesus tells us, "Yeah, that's coming and it's gonna be great, but, I'm telling you, the Kingdom's already here! Don't wait to start living that life--I'm here with you now!" The true children of the kingdom--the sons and daughters of God, the royal priesthood--are to be the incarnation of that kingdom and its Savior LORD. One writer says, "Believers are a dime-a-dozen nowadays. What the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but begin enacting it now."
An integral part of that present kingdom living is poverty. The freedom to be poor even if you have the means to great wealth. God calls some Christians to high incomes. Is that wrong? No. But He calls all kingdom children to use their income (whether high or low) to give freely to those in need. It is the means to spread the kingdom further and deeper. When we cling to our worldly wealth or use it for our own self-absorbed enjoyment and pleasure we are "receiving [our] comfort in full." (remember what Jesus said?) Woe to us! Complete ownership or possession of this fluid, conceptual, yet real Kingdom is only fully realized by embracing what would be considered poverty by the world. The freedom to be poor allows us to grasp (or own) fully the power, the pleasure, the joy and the beauty of, the betterness of this Kingdom. Only when we have relinquished our grip on this world's mammon and passing pleasures, on our own pride and self-righteousness and embraced the richness of Christ's holiness and pro-active love, the freedom of poverty can we really own the kingdom. When we are the poor (in so many physical and spiritual ways) then the kingdom of God will be ours!
How can the possession, ownership, rights to the kingdom of God be compared to or contrasted with receiving comfort in full? We know that rich people can enter into the kingdom, so what does it mean for the kingdom of God to be "yours?"
I think sometimes we think of the kingdom in too concrete or "boxed-in" terms. Jesus compared the kingdom to many very different things, events, actions, people and said that it is here, coming, in us and among us. How do you box that up? All this cannot be packaged into something so cut and dry as eternal salvation or "heaven." Yes, the kingdom is, in part, heaven, and it is salvation, but it is also so much more. Ushered in by grace and love and received by given faith, the Kingdom is a lifestyle of love, of faith, of good deeds, of striving to be perfectly holy like our Lord and Father--a radical new value system.
The kingdom of Heaven, of God, is here, now. It is today, this generation; the redeemed lifestyle of the redeemed, we live now with hope, and we LIVE! We live by faith with confident hope toward a future and perfect life that knows no death. The kingdom of God is a preview taste today of a beautiful life to be lived in full tomorrow. We all intuitively know that there is something better--heaven, a kingdom--in another life to come, but Jesus tells us, "Yeah, that's coming and it's gonna be great, but, I'm telling you, the Kingdom's already here! Don't wait to start living that life--I'm here with you now!" The true children of the kingdom--the sons and daughters of God, the royal priesthood--are to be the incarnation of that kingdom and its Savior LORD. One writer says, "Believers are a dime-a-dozen nowadays. What the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but begin enacting it now."
An integral part of that present kingdom living is poverty. The freedom to be poor even if you have the means to great wealth. God calls some Christians to high incomes. Is that wrong? No. But He calls all kingdom children to use their income (whether high or low) to give freely to those in need. It is the means to spread the kingdom further and deeper. When we cling to our worldly wealth or use it for our own self-absorbed enjoyment and pleasure we are "receiving [our] comfort in full." (remember what Jesus said?) Woe to us! Complete ownership or possession of this fluid, conceptual, yet real Kingdom is only fully realized by embracing what would be considered poverty by the world. The freedom to be poor allows us to grasp (or own) fully the power, the pleasure, the joy and the beauty of, the betterness of this Kingdom. Only when we have relinquished our grip on this world's mammon and passing pleasures, on our own pride and self-righteousness and embraced the richness of Christ's holiness and pro-active love, the freedom of poverty can we really own the kingdom. When we are the poor (in so many physical and spiritual ways) then the kingdom of God will be ours!
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