Some 40 years ago I heard a man make a comment in a message I have never forgotten and that would become a cornerstone in my growing understanding of the kingdom of God: “The most important issue in the universe is, ‘Who is in charge?’” On a national basis, all wars are ultimately fought over this question. Who determines what we do on this piece of real estate we live on? Personally, disagreements, fights, and all conflicts occur because someone doesn’t get his way;…
The commission to rule over the earth was delegated directly to us by Jesus Christ, from His seat at God’s right hand in Heaven, at the Ascension. So what? A casual Christian may think that this is just a grandiose, pie-in-the-sky, theological idea without a practical, divine strategy to actually implement it. So, for many of us “to rule in Jesus’ kingdom on the earth” really means nothing more than the old catch-all mind-set, “I should try to be good.” However, a careful Bible…
The Bible gives us specifics as to how this—the Lord’s prayer Jesus told us to pray—will be answered. This is a biblical truth of which many evangelicals are completely unaware. I want to look at some of these specifics in this posting. Immediately after Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, He received the Holy Spirit to equip Him for His task on the earth. Thus empowered, Jesus was then deliberately led by His Father into the wilderness for His first confrontation with Satan, the…
Our minds are renewed. We are learning how to think God’s way—death=life, losing=winning, serving=leading and last=first. As this way to think becomes a part of our lives, we are suddenly dangerous! We are finally ready to be engaged, every day, naturally and spontaneously, in the great purpose for which we were created, as God tells us in Genesis 1:26-28; 1.) to bear God’s image (as the Holy Spirit conforms us to Jesus’ image); 2.) to rule over the earth (in all we do—at work,…
For the last two weeks we have been discussing learning to think like God thinks. The Bible actually teaches us to think in a totally opposite way than we naturally do, a way that makes no sense to the natural man, but is the essential prerequisite for fulfilling the purpose for which we were created. To conclude this series of postings, here are a few practical examples of how we naturally think in various situations we all have faced, compared to how God thinks…
Last week we saw, writ large in Peter’s life, what Jesus called not “thinking God’s way” but man’s way; the same, satanically inspired way Adam and Eve chose to think at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We now, as sons of Adam, naturally think in terms of good and evil, cause and effect; i.e., the more we work to achieve the desired, good result, the more success we will have. Since the Fall, this is man’s natural, intuitive way of thinking.…
The LORD says: “My thoughts and my ways are not like yours. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, my thoughts and my ways are higher than yours” (Isaiah 55:8, 9). These verses are getting at a very fundamental truth: There are two, and only two, ways to think—man’s way and God’s way. Everyone comes into the world thinking man’s way. We are descendants of Adam and Eve, and we inherited from them the way of thinking they adopted at the Tree…
When I first began to really understand and experience the first three cornerstones of the Christian life, I was overjoyed and consumed by my new life of grace alone. I realized there was really nothing left to do but relax, enjoy, and watch as God, in His own time and His own way, was at work in my life, just as He promised He would be as my Father. And why not? There is so much to appreciate, to revel in, and to be…
For the past two weeks, we have addressed the theological questions from the Bible of 1.) what God is like (absolutely sovereign) and 2.) what I am like (absolutely, totally sinful). The next obvious question is, what does the Bible say about how this holy, righteous, sovereign God relates to me, this wicked, depraved sinner? The answer is even more surprising and controversial than the answer to the first two questions. God loves me, in spite of my despicable, unrelenting sin. The Bible calls…
After laying the first theological foundation stone for our Christian faith last week—the absolute sovereignty of God in everything—let’s reflect on why many of us have a difficult time accepting that premise. The reason is that we are addicted—and we have been since birth—to the fruit of the forbidden tree that we ate in the Garden of Eden in Adam. We were seduced by Satan’s lie that we can “be like God,” having our own “free will” to decide, for ourselves, what is right…