Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation Acts
1:3
God Rules, People Drool
by
Robert T. Cooper
That’s a
wretched title, but it gets the meaning across. The countdown was on. From
Resurrection to Ascension, Jesus had 40 days of appearances to get in His final
“on the earth” teachings to His earthly followers. Just about His main topic
was the Kingdom of God. Sadly, we don’t talk about this in the USA too much.
I’m doing Hillsdale’s Constitution studies with thousands of others, so like
many I’m into “all men are created equal.” No one is born with the right to
rule. But Jesus says that one of the most important things in all of life is
that God rules.
1.
God rules the
cosmos.
Why is this important? Because God determines the times set for us and
the exact places we will live. I’ll tell you the long story of how the Lord
taught me that verse when we get there, but the short version is that He gave
us the money to buy a house one block from a classmate of our child. This
classmate had a home situation which was helped by our family being there for
him. And God did it in such a way that everybody knew it was Him and no
coincidence.
In fact, there are no coincidences. Hurricane Isaac causes a delay of the
Republican Convention. That means a slightly different group will attend on a
slightly different schedule. God moves in big things and in small. A friend met
a new neighbor yesterday who casually out of the blue denigrated something;
this triggered a reconsideration of a lifestyle decision of the friend.
Coincidence? No, for the Lord reminds us to seek Him regarding all decisions on
all subjects. He is Lord. He rules.
There are other consequences of God ruling the cosmos. Perhaps you’d like
to mention them in the comments section.
2.
Where God rules,
His people have His guidance.
We who have placed our faith in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ have the
indwelling Holy Spirit. When we pray, it is not an unusual occurrence that our
thoughts are directed in ways we know are from God and not from ourselves. This
is because God is a real person and we have a real relationship with Him. God
communicates with us in such a way that we know that it is really He Who is
speaking with us. So this is one manner of guidance available to God’s people.
However it is admittedly subjective.
There is also more objective guidance available from God by way of the
Holy Bible. Again, the Holy Spirit is crucial to this guidance, for the Spirit
interprets the Scripture to us and teaches us how to apply what it says to our
daily situations. We have to learn the right ways to apply the Bible, because
some ways are not right. Since God is more interested in us having His guidance
than we are, He is active in this process.
As you might guess, it is important to have regular times for prayer and
Bible study, not rushed, not short. It is important to have times as an
individual and times with other believers. And it is important to “do what it
says.” (James 1:22)
3.
No dual
citizenship.
One of the issues in witnessing to polytheists is that they tend to
simply add Jesus to their pantheon of gods. But there is also an issue in
witnessing to modern Americans. That issue is that people tend to think of
Christianity as simply “praying the prayer” to accept Jesus, and then you go on
with your life like you were before, only you get to go to heaven when you die.
Or else you go to church several Sundays each year and that’s about all the
claim Christ makes on you; all the rest of your life is like it was before. It’s
like you continue your citizenship in the lost world and add citizenship in the
Kingdom of God as a dual citizen.
The only thing is that the Kingdom of God has a law: No dual citizenship.
In order to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God, a person has to renounce
citizenship in the world. A more traditional way of saying this is that one
must turn from one’s sinful life and turn to Christ. The fancy theological word
is repentance.
That’s what Jesus meant when He said that no one can serve two masters.
Either you will love the one and hate the other or you will cling to one and
despise the other; you cannot serve God and Mammon. Now we usually think of
Mammon as the money god, but think larger than that. Jesus was saying no dual
citizenship. If you are going to be in God’s Kingdom, to place yourself under
the rulership of God, then you must abandon all allegiance to this world. This
world is no longer your home. You become an alien here, an ambassador for the
Kingdom. Your heart will long for your true home.
Question:
React to these things. What else do you know about the Kingdom of God? If the
Kingdom was so important to Jesus, why don’t we hear about the Kingdom so much
anymore?
