I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the world, culture, society, and other people. I've been asking God to give me his perspective on all these things and to enable me to see the holiness of everything, to be able to see the hand of God all around me.
You see, I think the standard conservative Christian position on the world, culture, and other people is that they are basically and fundamentally irredeemable. Oh, sure, God can and does occassionally change some people, but as a whole, society, culture, and people are growing worse and worse, are going down the tubes, and as a result should generally be avoided.
A far cry from the life and ministry of Jesus whose overarching message was the coming of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus' life and ministry was very much about the kingdom of heaven invading and transforming the kingdom of the world. His miracles were evidence of the coming of the kingdom. His teachings were about life in the kingdom. His death, burial, and resurrection were about the kingdom of the heavens being firmly established in this world and redeeming a people who are citizens of that kingdom and who will continue to carry forward that kingdom here on earth.
So, I ask the question, what would the world be like if Christians really believed that heaven were possible here on earth? How would we see the world and culture and society and other people differently if we saw them all as basically and fundamentally redeemable? How would it change our approach to life if we looked for the hand of God in every moment, every conversation, every interaction? Would our actions and attitude be different if our perspective on heaven was not some pie in the sky by and by approach, not some retreat from life in the real world, but if we understood that the kingdom of heaven is at hand right now in the world around us? What if instead of wishing for something better, we made the world better? What if, whenever we saw places in life that weren't quite heaven, we chose to do something about it to bring the life of the kingdom of heaven to reality here?
Think about it. Much more to come.
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1 comment:
Uhm, you ask alot of what ifs? I think we would be alot more like the first century Christians and the Acts church.
That and I think we would be too busy to read The Left Behind series or play the video game.
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