Strive For His Kingdom
Recently I attended a spiritual retreat lead by Brennan Manning (author of the book The Ragamuffin Gospel). While at the retreat, Brennan provided the audience on two occasions with a homework assingment. The two assignments were similar in that both times we were told to meditatively pray over certain passages of scripture.
This morning, while prayerfully and meditatively looking over the passage of Luke 12:22-32 something hit me while I was journaling. After Jesus tells His peeps to stop worrying so much about every little thing, He gives them the same advice that He gave the crowd toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount: ”strive for His kingdom” (Luke 12:31 - NRSV). Have you ever stopped to think about what Jesus is saying here? How do you “strive” for His kingdom? And before we even get to that, WHAT IS HIS KINGDOM!?
As I journaled, I came to the conclusion that God’s Kingdom represents His values, teachings, and realities. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask that “Thy Kingdom come.” When we do so, we are praying that God’s will will be done in our lives. His will is found in the things that he values which becomes a reality through the discipled life that has been transformed. But, there is one issue. I have a kingdom of my own with my own values, teachings and realities.
To strive for His kingdom means to wave the white flag and surrender my kingdom, with all its baggage, to Jesus and receive His kingdom instead.
Posted by pastor matthew on February 26, 2007 at 07:44 PM
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I have recently lived a similar experience, Matthew. I was reading Luke 17 and a thought floored me like a bolt: somehow the story about the 10 lepers and the warning about Lot’s wife were connected. In that event Jeses talked to the lepers, to the grateful leper (a Samaritan), to the pharisees and to his disciples. Jesus says to the pharisees that his kingdom is “within” or at least it is evident with no external turmoil. But, to his disciples Jesus says that “His Coming” will be like a lightning show. He established then that His Kingdom is different than His Second Comming. We can live now is Kingdom, among us, “within” (entos) us. We do not have to wait until His Coming. That’s love!
Posted by Jaime Arturo Mejia, MD on March 07, 2007 at 09:24 PM | #Page 1 of 1 pages