Okay, so rewind 6 years. I’m 18 years old and I am sitting at the top of the staircase at an in-home college Bible study. My buddy is playing guitar and everybody is singing together. It was in that moment that my attention got yanked away by the halting roadblock in my mind. I had been taking on this title of “Christian” for my whole life and suddenly I was confronted by the selfishness in my desire for heaven. In that moment, I encountered a truer and more real perspective of the Kingdom of God. Heaven had shifted from the purpose of my Christian life to the motivation for my Christian life. For it’s absolutely not wrong to want Heaven (in reality, God rejoices when we want Heaven because it is His glorious gift and an extension of His goodness) but it cannot be the very purpose of our lives. I realized, sitting on those beige, carpeted stairs, that our purpose, more so, ought to be serving God through the work of helping Him establish His perfect Kingdom amongst those on earth. The way that my life has matured since that moment is astounding.
It is incredible to think that the single, grandest, most impacting event of history has not happened yet. It touches on all of people’s emotions—joy, fear, determination, wonder, and significance. That event is the return of Christ and the coming of God’s Kingdom. More lives have found purpose and motivation from that event than any other in the span of history. 2000 years of “outcasts”, “radicals”, “fools”, “lawbreakers” and “wierdos” because of that event. It’s the event where all will see the fulfillment of God’s promise to rescue, exalt and glorify those that have remained faithful to Him. It’s a hope so transformative, that many would, and have given their life for it.
But is that us? Is that me? Is that you? Have we even opened up our hearts enough to let that hope enter in and transform us fully. If we hear the words of the prophet Daniel, the Revelation of John, and teaching of Jesus about this event, are we convinced that we are what they call “the elect”. Are we standing firm in the face of persecution or have we been cowering behind our possessions and our insecurities so much that we aren’t even willing to encounter persecution? Are we fighting the oppression of evil, rescuing the lost and mending the broken? Are we in the race, running hard as the Apostle Paul puts it in 1 Cor. 9, or are we sitting on the sidelines because we haven’t caught sight of the grandeur of the Prize. Are we loving and caring for others in humility as a testament to God’s love for us, or have we been so arrogant to think that we deserve what we have? Do we take Jesus’ Great Commission to go to the ends of the earth and preach the message of new life in Christ seriously? That’s what has been going through my head and my heart since I was eighteen and I tell you what—I am lot closer to saying that that IS me now, than when I was eighteen.
Here is truth regarding the coming of God’s Kingdom—not from my own mind, but from the lips of the Son of Man: “And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.” (Mark. 13:10) The world must hear! The world needs hope! “We come as men, approved by God, to be entrusted with the Gospel.” (1 Thes. 2:4) God has entrusted His servants with the task of lighting the world. He has entrusted us to grow His Kingdom and rescue those whose destiny is destruction. We don’t want to be caught “sleeping” as Jesus puts it in Mark 13:36. When His followers begin to boldly step into this mission and take the name of Christ into all nations and people groups, that is when God’s Kingdom can come. For the picture of God’s Kingdom incorporates a representative from every tribe, language, people and nation (Rev. 5). That is a beautiful thing!
We got to plug into this, my fellow members of the Church. This is the quality of loyalty. When Christ Returns, whether it’s in this life time or many years from now, the glory and brilliance of Heaven--His Kingdom—will be amplified not by our crown, our room, or even the golden streets of the new Jerusalem, but by the people that are there with us because of how we impacted their lives. This is a Kingdom perspective. So let us be filled with the Holy Spirit and let’s go be ambassadors for the Kingdom of God!
“For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and our joy” (1 Thes. 2:19-20)
