He who would be a true warrior
in God’s kingdom,
Will most joyfully spend all,
And be fully spent,
For that purpose
Will most joyfully spend all,
And be fully spent,
For that purpose
which his King deems worthy.
This is his honor and no duty.
These are the terms of enlistment.
They are not negotiable.
~ Makala Barnabas Doulos
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.
This is his honor and no duty.
These are the terms of enlistment.
They are not negotiable.
~ Makala Barnabas Doulos
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.
~ Romans 14:17-18
He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him.
~ John 7:18
Oh Beloved, it is true. The Kingdom of G_d is real. And Jesus said that it is in you. It is a kingdom of, by, through, and made up of all that He is.
Entry into this kingdom is limited to a very few. It is only granted to those who will see it and enter it on His terms. Those terms are absolute: Thou shalt love the LORD thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
The enigma here is that those terms are impossible. The two laws above are absolutely unattainable by a human being. So, Jesus has made a way by crashing into time, living a perfect life, and surrendering all of His perfect Self on the cross to pay for our sins. Jesus exchanged all of Himself, for all of us.
This is very good news. And He left us with even more.
All he wants us to do is to throw away any attempt whatsoever to get into His kingdom on our own merits. He wants us to abandon any rules about what we should do, or what we should eat, or what we should drink. He wants us to abandon any efforts at looking good for G_d. There is absolutely no way we can clean ourselves up, glorify ourselves enough, to get into His domain.
He wants us to surrender all of who we are, and put on all that He is. He wants our lives to be driven by two simple motives: His glory, and becoming His friend forever. And when we yield to that truth in our lives, He pours out oceans of His power to get this wholly new life started and working. His grace teaches, encourages, empowers, and enriches us all along the way. REMEMBER. Once the exchange is made, there is absolutely no reasonable reason for us to go back to any of our old methods for getting to Him. HE makes the way. HE gives us the power to pull it off.
Then, in that space, we realize that all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is but dust in the wind of the universe. That we are nothing. However, in the same thought, we realize that G_d just wants all the little specks of dryness that we are. That’s all. And in that giving away of any of ourselves, we trust the He is able to bring us into His kingdom. We see that He is the Author and Finisher of this whole thing.
Further, the jaws of our spirits drop wide open when we realize, in how NOTHING we are – and how EVERYTHING He is, that this One deeply loves us. That He wants to befriend us, and make us royalty in His kingdom.
It makes no human sense. So, we stop trying to make sense of it, and simply begin to worship and honor the only One worthy of worship and honor. Then we begin to walk gladly into this new Life He alone has made possible.
Simply for the honor of being there, we take on His righteousness. We begin to actually act like Him. We are not “good” so that He will accept us. We act like Him, because we are honored to hang out with the only One that is any good anyway. In fact, we are not just in proximity to Him – He is IN us – and we are IN Him.
Is the sugar dissolved in the tea? Or is the tea infused into the sugar? Yes.
Understanding the honor of being in His kingdom brings about a profound sense of peace. We have made peace with His terms of entry. We have peace because we no longer have an impossible task at which to fail. We have peace because He has won an eternal epic victory over the problem of the sin that has separated us from Him.
And as we take residence in His kingdom, our spirits begin to commune with His Spirit. We dwell now in the land where He is present, and He shows us that He is this simply abundantly joyful Being that imbues us with exactly the same stuff. There is this inexpressible fullness to it, but oh it is so real.
He does not just love – He is Love.
He does not just live – He is Life.
He does not just give light – He is Light.
And we are utterly one with Him.
We no longer live as some separate epic failure in the cosmos. He lives in us and through us. We simply live in faith that His ways are in all ways the only right path. We go where He wants to go. We say what He wants us to say. We see things as He sees them
We see, finally, that He honors us with His own Righteousness, with His own Peace, and with His own Joy. And, in return, we simply want to honor Him for the lavish gifts He has poured out on us.
The honors of this world: what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?
~ Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
