Kingdom Ready

In 1 Corinthians 13 -the love chapter- Paul tell us many things, but I think I should let the source speak for itself:

This was the sermon I delivered last week in manuscript form. We began a series on spiritual discipline and this is the opening sermon in that series.

God Bless        

    So, about a week ago, I was sitting on a beach next to my wife and my parents. Beaches are wonderful, aren’t they? To sit there and feel the air, the sound of the waves and the sun beating down on you is almost surreal. You know what I’m talking about, that feeling that almost takes your breath away with its grandeur. By far, though, the most impressive thing is to look out on the horizon. It feels like the ocean is never ending, that this could wholly consume you, yet at the same time it is terrifying in all of its attributes.

I know the title isn’t very creative, but this article in itself is. It was written by Dr. Andrew Root, a professor at Luther Seminary. The basic consideration is how God’s timeline is separate from ours. This meaning that when miraculous things happen in our timeline it is God’s future breaking into our timeline. Dr. Andrew explains so much better than I, here is an exerpt followed by a link to the rest of the article

I wrote this devotional for our service at North Hills this sunday. I thought I would share. It is far from perfect and far from being theologically thorough, but sometimes, that may be just what we need.

What is worship, what does it mean to worship, and what is the purpose of our worship? Does it mean coming to church and singing songs?

 

I get devotional thoughts from a pastor-friend of mine named Steve Taylor, many on this board may know him as well and this particular one really struck me. The link to his blog is http://www.kingdomdreamer.blogspot.com/ this particular blog was posted on May 29.

The urgent need is to simplify. In this fast-paced, high-tech age simple priorities have been buried under mountains of complexities.

“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” (Mark 10:15)

We were discussing the beattitudes on Wednesday night bible study and as I was reading a commentary as a study before the actual class, I read something about righteousness that really changed my view on my own righteousness.

We often hear people talk about being a good person and doing what’s right and sometimes we have this feeling that what’s right to them isn’t entirely right at all. Other times (and a little more often than I would like to admit) I think I’m doing the “right” thing and feel a little weird about it.

It’s very hard to post after a blitzkrieg of sorts involving theological conference papers. I trust that it was fun. Unfortunately I couldn’t go, I was stuck working back at North Hills. 

It is hard following up such great scholarship as those who write papers for the Theological Conference and sometimes I find it quite daunting to come up against such great minds. I found myself reading some of the papers and I got stuck on Kent Ross’s paper on Heresy, or at least the so-called heresy of the Radical Reformation.  For those of you who are unsure of what the Radical Reformation was, it was a part of the Anabaptist movement that desired to get back to the truths of the Bible, to get back to the original teachings of Jesus and the apostles. Radical meaning “back to the roots” they desired to get back to Christianity’s roots which are where many of us in that line of thinking get our Unitarian and soul sleep beliefs, from this desire to get back to the roots of Christianity.

I found this article to be very interesting and thought-provoking.

James Tabor is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he has taught since 1989.  The article itself is found under the subject heading of Hellenistic/Roman Religion & Philosophy. I believe that we should eat up all the information we can get in regards to this “going to Heaven” motif and by understanding the way that these other religions viewed it we can further understand where Christianity departed from the Kingdom message and what kind of influences went into this departing. The author doesn’t give any of his own assumptions in regards to whether we do or do not go to heaven when we die, it seems he intended for this just to be an informational piece.

In James 4:8 it tells us that if we draw near to God He will draw near to us.

I recently had an experience in which I felt that God was reminding me of this fact.  As an intern, I find that sometimes I get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the day and forget to give God the place that He deserves in my life. Sometimes I find that I do not spend enough time in the scriptures and in prayer and many of the other spiritual disciplines that God has provided us all.

I was in a program at a church in Pleasant Hill, Ohio -which is (quite conveniently I might add) called Pleasant Hill Church of God- that was designed by the Youth (at the time called R.O.C. –reaching others for Christ) called ROCFest. We played music loudly and all sorts of things that young kids like to do. What really struck me about last years program was the particular verse we chose as “This Year’s Verse” (which in itself makes me a little uncomfortable to call a verse “This Year’s Verse”): Matthew 16:24.