Greetings folks:
Last week we talked about three fundamentals that distinguished the Kingdom from other power sources. This week I want to talk about a fundamental of all power sources, and that’s the transfer of power. If everyone is on the same page, something will transfer, good or bad. Jesus’ Prayer, The Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6, is Jesus’ primary desire, “Thy Kingdom Come, on Earth, as it is in Heaven”. Both Christ and the Father wish to see image and likeness passed on. Well, image and likeness get passed on to the next generation whether it’s the Kingdom or not (unless SOMEone plugs into Christ and breaks this cycle). Kingdom-driven empowerment, however, is always love-mediated. If there’s no love, there’s no empowerment. Let’s look at some case studies.
Example 1: Let’s say there’s this guy who claims Christ. And he goes to a church and he’s getting the Word every Sunday and participates in a men’s group one a month. He comes across a friend of his, who has been saved for 10 years already. The friend asks him, “Hey man, how’s it going? It’s been a while I missed ya! I’ve been busy man, going over and taking care of my mother; you know she hasn’t been feeling well. You know my daughter has been kind of sad since that guy dumped her. You remember the one I was telling you about. So I’ve been comforting her. In my Word deep too; I’m so glad I have God in my business. What’s new with you?” The first guy tells him, “Well you missed a good Word man; you should really come to church more often. There’s no excuse man; we have to connect to God daily.”
So, who’s in the Kingdom, and who is the religious humanist? Easy one, right? God is omnipresent. Abram didn’t set up contact points with God within a church. He did it as he moved so he could stay connected to God. The connection was more important…and it eventually paid off with the Abrahamic covenant. While church is nice, and the babe probably needs to be there, God will judge us contingent on how genuine our connection is with Him (so that we can go do His Work), NOT how often we are in church.
Example 2: Let’s use the second guy from Example 1 again. On top of being saved, he’s married as well (only relevant for this example). He has a buddy at work who wants to go out with him. They go out to a pool hall and shoot some pool. The work buddy notices that a woman is checking out his boy. “Say man, that chick is fine! You should holla at her!” Our friend kind of shrugs him off, saying, “Nah man you need to focus on this here game ‘cuz I’m pickin’ you apart!” The work buddy comes around and whispers, “Man I know you and your wife been kind of fussing lately; she don’t look at you right. Ol gurl is lookin’ at you the right way. Look man; you bailed me out at work a few times. Let me bail you out. I’ll pay for you to use the Super 8 ‘cross the street if you can get at her, and I’ll cover for you.” Our friend puts down his pool cue and looks at his work buddy. “Come on man; this got to be the most disrespect thing you’ve ever told me. Look man; my marriage ain’t perfect but it’s doing what God wants it to do. It also got a purpose. I’m gonna say this once; don’t ever come at me like that again.” The work buddy, taken aback, asks, “Why you had to pull God into this?” Our friend says, “Because I was on my way to hell but God had other plans. Maybe God can have some for you if you turn away from this foolishness.”
Kind of obvious again, right? Our friend has a secularized work buddy…don’t wanna hear about God. But while our friend was upset, he didn’t attack the guy moreover as he attacked the mindset/worldview he had. He may not get any immediate fruit from it, but that may very well be in work buddy’s head 2 and 3 days later.
Last example:
Our friend is involved in his church. He does some of the finance budget balancing and they recently let on a new staff member. Younger guy who is single with no kids. Enthused about the Lord but not a lot of his own stuff established so that he could have his own ministry to edify the Body. Our friend has established a solid friendship with the younger man, and the younger man looks up to our friend as a big brother figure. Our friend goes to the younger guy and asks him, “So you had that great marketing idea that you could launch man…weren’t you like a mathematician? You could use that stuff and get at these youth…get into these schools. What do you think?” The younger guy sighs and says, “Man I just have so much to do here…sometimes it feels like if I don’t know it, it won’t get done.” Our friend is kind of stunned. He’s never heard his young friend talk like that before. He knows he needs to connect to the Spirit for the next thing he says and do it just right for our friend. <
A. “Well do what you have to do that is that hard? You don’t do anything here!”
B. “I think you’re just afraid to move on out on your faith.”
C. “It won’t get done? How little faith do you have? You need to tighten up on that! You’ll never grow with that attitude”
D. “Alright man, let’s sit down and lay out what you got over here and make sure we can make sure you get your stuff established. I’ll call in the rest of the team and spread this weight around if you like.
E. None of the above.
Answer away in the comments. We’ll go over all FIVE answers next week. Have a good week folks!
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