The Kingdom of God
This Web cast is read and listened to by people from around the world. You may be happy to be Danish, or Swedish, or South African, or Chinese, or Australian, or German, or Canadian, or US American, or Venezuelan, but your country does not live, to use Paul’s words, to “find out what pleases the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10). It lives by the world’s values.
God uses the kingdoms of this world to accomplish his purposes, particularly that of keeping order, and when governments require something that does not conflict with God’s will, we must be submissive.
But for most of you, your citizenship in your country is pretty much just a footnote when it comes to your life. Who you really are is not a card-carrying, flag-waving defender of the French fatherland, or nationalistic supporter of Mother Russia, or an ardent supporter of US American democracy or Chinese communism. Who you are is a citizen of heaven. You are an alien and a stranger in this world, in your own country, because you pledge unconditional allegiance to King Jesus and to him only. You have changed your mind about what you can completely and totally defend.
Scriptures
John 18:35-36
"Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"
36Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."
Philip. 3:19-20
Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
1 Peter 2:9-11
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.
2 Cor. 6:14
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
Acts 4:18-20
Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. 20For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."
Dear Tom, your words struck a resonant note with me. I've been grappling with the issue of spiritual identities and physical identities. I think our spiritual identity in Christ should permeate and even eclipse our physical identities. To what extent are we to cooperate with those who demand a fulfillment of responsibilities that are largely based on parochial identities that we shed long ago when we were baptized into Christ ?
ReplyDeleteI'll explain my predicament. Let us say a head count is to be taken of people belonging to different races, languages and castes. What do you think would be an appropriate response to them and why ?
I recall Paul's words that if a slave just became a Christian he should remain so and if possible he should secure his freedom if possible. Is there an underlying principle here that we can apply to other situations?
If you feel you cannot discuss it at length here I would be grateful if you could send me a mail.
Nirmal,
Indian Church of Christ, Mysore