I was thinking this morning of the Kingdom of the Heavens again. It seems to consume my thoughts these days. I go to bed with thoughts of the Kingdom. I wake up with thoughts of the Kingdom. When I go for a run, thoughts of the Kingdom. Jump in the shower…thoughts of the Kingdom.
I like this, these are good thoughts. I think I just might be becoming a bit obsessed…and I’m really okay with that.
Jess and I and my buddy Wade were talking about…you guessed it…the Kingdom last night. How pervasive it is, how demanding it is. How God’s Kingdom, His effective rule is everywhere, in everything; demanding that we surrender all, surrender our own little kingdoms completely to His. There is no partial surrender; there is no negotiating of terms, only an all encompassing letting go.
And this is exciting to me!
I have come to the place in my life of honestly believing that God is so good, He is so powerful, and that He loves me so much that this is truly the best thing for my life; for Him to be in control. My life completely in His oh so capable hands. This is the life of the ages. This is the best possible life…so why settle for anything less?
My thoughts lately have been overwhelmed with the awesome goodness of the Kingdom, of this way of life.
So the naturally related thought process for me becomes, what then does this look like in my life?
This is right about when my head tries to explode.
Talking about total surrender of my kingdom to His great Kingdom is good and right. We have to start somewhere, but sooner or later talk becomes cheap when there is no currency of action. I believe I am at this place. It’s time for everything to change.
But change for the sake of change isn’t the answer either…right?
Last Sunday, Pastor Brian was introducing the book of Ephesians to us. He was talking about the Ephesians cultural context (or in the words of another author, their “framing story”) and how this influenced every area of their life. Morality, faith, political system, worship, business, justice system, private life, and on and on were all influenced and even determined by their cultural context or framing story.
I’m realizing that no society is exempt from this…including ours. And better yet, there are framing stories within framing stories within framing stories. These framing stories then develop into little kingdoms complete with walls and creeds and laws and membership. “Do you belong to this party or that party?” “Do you belong to this country or that country?” “Do you belong to this church or that church?” “Do you belong to this community or that community?”
The walls of these, and many more, kingdoms being built from our framing stories, our culture context.
But no one can escape their framing story! No one can pretend they don’t have one. Our framing stories are so pervasive since the time of infancy that we don’t even recognize them any more. All we see is black and white, right or wrong, this side or that side from the all too often times very limited perspective of our own cultural contexts.
This is what Jesus came to do, to teach us to live in His Fathers framing story. To break down the walls of our little kingdoms and sub-kingdoms, and wholly submit ourselves to His framing story. Completely, desperately dependant on Him to show us how to live and move and breathe in His great Kingdom as His subjects, free to experience the life of the ages, the best kind of life, the life that He, and not me, is fully responsible for and capable of handling.
And so, this is where everything must change. My framing story, our framing stories, must change.
And so, once again, what does this tangibly look like in my life…in our lives?
I feel a bit like a surfer that has been surfing a cultural context wave and I’ve just been pounded and rolled by it and now I’m looking for up, and so I’m watching for bubbles because they will show me the way to swim so that I can catch my breath and then catch the Fathers framing story wave and begin to surf again, but I’m not wanting to wait here underwater for too long because frankly…I LIKE TO BREATHE!
(If you read that all in one breath you can feel a little of what I’m talking about.)
But I’m not wanting to swim just to swim; I want to swim in the right direction. And I’m not wanting to catch the next wave just so I can surf again; I want to catch the best wave. So I don’t want to change just for the sake of change and certainly not haphazardly so, but I can’t escape that everything must change in my framing story, and this will affect how I think, how I act, what I do in our community…ultimately, how I live.
And I’m excited about it!
So what do you think? I would love to start a comment conversation right here about this. Will you join in? I look forward to it!
Anonymous says:
ReplyDeleteMay 1, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I completely agree. God has called the church to be the light of the world and the vehicle in which He brings hope, not political parties, organizations, nationalities or denominations. The church should be the place the world looks and says, “How do they love each other?” When the Bible explains that we are to be a peculiar people, is it not perhaps meaning the love we should have? A love the world cannot explain. The only sign Jesus gave His disciples was, “they will know you are my disciples by the love you have for one another.” Why is the church known more for what it is against rather than what is for? Jesus did come to separate our differences, but instead give our differences meaning. Have we allowed culture to dictate our Christianity by determining who’s in and who’s out based on political party or whether or not poker should be played in church? By being an American, has its’ definition of Truth, Justice and Freedom redirected me to perhaps something completely different then Christ intended? The only way the church will change is if I change. The organization of the church is only a structure and building. We need to be the church, rather than just go to church. We are not only part of the problem; we are part of the solution as well.
Jimi Pitts
Brian says:
ReplyDeleteMay 4, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Thanks Casey.
As I read your entry, I thought of (of all people!!), Sigmund Freud who said, ‘everyone talks of the fall of man, but no one is making a move to get up!’.
Much talk (sadly much from myself) is made of the frailties and shortcomings of the Western Church. Yes, it is easy to be against something-but who can say with Paul, ‘follow me as I follow Christ’?
Jesus always called individuals-and asked them to leave everything to follow Him. Until this is the most important thing in one’s life-we will just go one bemoaning the situation we have gotten ourselves into while we stay parked by the side of the road waiting for the Heavenly AAA to tow our sorry, defeated life through the pearly gates.
Yes, and that means me. Sobering, but oh so exciting as I contemplate the glorious person He wishes to make of me.
Anonymous says:
ReplyDeleteMay 5, 2009 at 6:34 am
I couldn’t agree more with what you said. I think that one thing that we, as believers, do is we feel like we HAVE to do something kind for others and commit good acts just because we are told to do them and we feel almost obligated to do something and it starts to become fake. This is exactly why people put on their Sunday best and just smile and pretend like everything is good and dandy, but in reality it’s not. I think that needs to change. The whole point of being a part of the church body is for people to get encouragement from one another and to keep each other in line and give each other strength to get through the week and confide in one another and we can’t do that if we are being fake with one another.
What I noticed is that when I’m doing something kind for someone else, like giving them a ride home, it has so much to do with the heart, if your heart isn’t in it, then there’s no point. If I’m not doing something for the right reason then there is no point in me doing it. For example, if I’m not happy about doing something for someone and I make that obvious through sarcastic things that I say or by having a bad attitude about it, then why would I do it? Because the whole point in me doing something for someone else is to show people God’s amazing love and mercy, and if I’m not having a good attitude about serving someone then there is no reason for me to actually serve people. What I noticed is that when I do have an actual genuine servants heart that people notice it, and they really appreciate how I treat them and how me just listening to what they have to say means a lot to them. So even when I’m not happy about serving someone I feel like I should either not be there or I need to force myself to change how I think about and view the situation. It’s amazing how much my attitude will change if I try and find the good out of a situation rather than always focusing on the bad.
I can also relate to you when you were talking about the surfer and how sometimes I feel like I’m just waiting for the perfect wave, but while waiting for the “perfect” wave, I’m missing out on a bunch of other things that would not only be incredibly beneficial to me, but to the ones around me as well. And what is holding me back is fear, I’m afraid that I won’t do something right or that I will do wrong towards someone and completely screw up my relationship with them or their chances of becoming a believer. But then I am reminded of how powerful God is. And God can do anything he wants to, and it’s not my fault for someone turning their backs from God, so I shouldn’t beat myself up for it. However, maybe some of the actions that I commit need to change. Like if the reason why someone decided not to follow Christ was because I claimed to be a Christian but showed no mercy, love, or compassion towards anyone and committed other acts that are in no way glorifying to Christ then I need to have enough strength to admit that I have some issues that I need to work on and in no way are my actions glorifying God....(continued)
(...continued) I have seen how amazing and powerful God is, and I agree with you so much Casey that I believe that life is so much more worth it and that the best thing for my life is to give God complete control over my life because that is what is best for me and I honestly don’t think that people will ever be able to completely surrender themselves to God until they understand God’s amazing Love. It wasn’t until I experienced his love until I learned to put my full faith and trust in him and just knowing that I can’t do ANYTHING without him; at least anything that actually gives me joy and worth. I think that when people completely surrender themselves to God and decide to live for him and only then that is when they will realize that following God has SO MUCH to do with their hearts and it isn’t until our hearts begin to change that our actions will begin to change. When people become so wrapped up in God, then they begin to want what God wants and hate what God hates. To begin to desire that the injustice in this world will stop.
ReplyDeleteI think what it looks like to completely surrender everything to God is to just have complete trust and faith in him; and knowing that no matter what happens, he has your best interest in mind. We may not see it now, but eventually it will be revealed to us and as long as you continue to trust in that, then God will bless your commitment to him. We are called to be loving and caring people. Not of this world, to follow Christ and his ways and so to fully surrender to him is even in your hardest days to still be able to look at a stranger, acquaintance, or family/friend and choose to still love them because we know that God loves them. We need to stop waiting around for God to make it completely obvious in the next actions for us to take place. Instead we need to go out on the limb and take a chance, get out of our comfort zones and take a chance. It’s not easy, but no one ever said that giving everything to God would be, but I think that is what makes following Christ so amazing.
-Rochelle
Anonymous says:
ReplyDeleteMay 5, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Brian,
You included this in an email you wrote to me. I hope it’s okay that I add it to your comment. I love this part. You said:
“You are oh, so right. It begins with the individual. It begins with me. And when we begin to contemplate the beautiful creature He is making us into, and how we won’t even, one day be
concerned with what He has made of us (because we will be much too enthralled with the source from which all Holiness flows), the ‘cost of discipleship’, is the greatest bargain ever presented to the Human Being.
And all of this is as Lewis says, a bit…’on the stage where the road goes over the rim of the world and no one can see much beyond that…’” - Casey
Anonymous says:
ReplyDeleteMay 5, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I love where this is headed!!
Jimi, I really appreciate your comments that (in my paraphrase) we as the body of Christ, as His Church are not to be identified by the worlds standards of various affiliations. God exists above these lines drawn in the sand. Jesus showed this every time those in the Jewish community tried to box Him in and label Him with one group or another. He always re-framed their questions to reflect His Fathers way of thinking…and it blew their minds! This is what I so desperately want in my own life, to be so utterly dependent every moment of every day on the Father that I begin to think just as Jesus did, in the way of His Father. He was brilliant when it came to how to live life here in this world because He understood that the best way to live here was in His Father’s kingdom! This Kingdom is one where Truth, Justice and Freedom are all defined by His great love for His children and His insatiable desire to see His children living the best life possible to them, life with Him.
Brian, you know I love your thoughts on discipleship. This is where following Christ happens to get a little scary for me, where Paul says, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” This again, is the life I want to live, the life that is so dependent on desperately following Christ that I can say, “Of course you can follow me, I am right on Jesus’ heels.” Both you and Jimi have been this for me (I hope that doesn’t scare you ). I have seen your unwillingness to settle for menial life and your passionate pursuit of the way of Jesus, following in His footsteps, and I have learned in so many ways how to follow myself. I only hope I can be the same for others…and I believe that Father, in His great grace and mercy, is transforming me into this kind of person. I also love the idea of being so enthralled with the Him that we see the ‘cost of discipleship’ as the greatest bargain ever presented to us! That we would be a people who would live passionately as those who have taken this bargain, and all those whom we would come into contact with would be utterly intrigued beyond their own understanding to find out more of this great bargain for themselves! This is the life of the reconciled, the life of the redeemed, the life of an ambassador for Christ Himself, a life of Holy, surrendered joy to our Father, in His Kingdom! This is the greatest opportunity available in this life. I want to live every moment as if I truly believe it.
(more later…..)