Scripture #1: "Kingdom Come"

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Today represents a bit of a milestone for us as it is our 200th week to send out a Mind Change Moment. Sheila and I want to thank you for so much encouragement and support that you have given us so to help keep these messages going out. After today were going to take  a break, and not be sending out any our regular podcasts for a while. But I do want to talk to you about something else we're going to make available.

Over the last few weeks I've been sharing with you some of the passages of Scripture that made the biggest impact on my life. I've said several times that we are not trying to countdown to Number One. However, the passage that I share today has certainly been the most important one to me over the last 2 1/2 years.

It comes from what most people call the Lord's Prayer, and here's the familiar verse:

Matthew 6:10 

your kingdom come,

your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

No biblical concept has gripped me more in the last 30 months like the subject of the kingdom of God, and no passage that I've studied has given more insight into the kingdom than this one.

Jesus' message of the kingdom is that the age to come and the rule and reign of God have broken into this present age so that the disciples of Jesus  become a colony of heaven in a broken and dark world. Their continual prayer is "your kingdom come, your will be done right here, right now on earth as it is in heaven."

Understanding that my life is not so much about "going to heaven when I die," although that is very important, but that it is about living heaven right here on earth before I die has represented a massive mind change. It has made sense of so many things in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. It has fit with Paul's statement that though we lived here, our citizenship is in heaven. It has made clear why Peter would say we are aliens, foreigners and strangers in this world.

One day the kingdom will come in all of its fullness, but now it is coming like waves of an invading force breaking in here and there, and then there and here in this world. Our goal is not to wait until heaven to be filled up with the righteousness of God, but to hunger and thirst for it now so that we might treat all men the very same way that we will treat everyone in heaven.

After months of study, my friend Steve Brown and I wrote a book that we prayed would cause hundreds and thousands to dig deeply into this crucial message. But this week I clicked on to a website operated by our book distributor to check on how sales were going for this book. I was a little stunned at what I saw. I guess you could say the sales have been respectable, but nothing like what I would've expected or hoped.

Some people tell me that disciples today really don't want to study that deeply but that they just want a thought or two to get them through the day. I have to admit that makes me wonder if that contributes to the popularity of Mind Change Moments. Is it that people want to take just a moment, have the equivalent of a spiritual five-hour energy drink? As Chicagoans once said to shoeless Joe Jackson "Tell us it ain't so, Joe."

I don't know what the real situation is, but because of my passion to have more people study and then live out the message of the kingdom, I'm going to record several more videos like this one over the next few weeks in which I will give you more of my convictions about the kingdom of God. If you only have a moment, this will likely be too long for you, but if you want a challenge to go deeper, this may be the place.

Thanks very much. I hope to see you next week.