Integrating the System, Part 2

When Paul arrived in Ephesus, he asked the believers "did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became Believers?" “No,” they replied.  "We’ve not even heard of a holy spirit."  

I am convinced that today if you asked believers the question, “Have you received and entered into the Kingdom Realm since you believed?” you would receive a similar reply. “We’ve not even heard of a Kingdom.” We must tell everyone of this available power for our victorious living.

Religion has made their message about the King and the church, and usually their brand of church. The Kingdom is relegated mostly to the future.  Dr. E. Stanley Jones said it this way, and I cannot say it better:  

“Many who took the Kingdom took it in a modified form, as a personal spiritual refuge which they could run to and be safe now, or as a place of reward in heaven. They didn’t reject it – they reduced it. And in reducing it they rendered it innocuous now. It wasn’t the Kingdom, God’s total answer to man’s total need. It wasn’t God’s total plan and program for life, all life now, but a reward thrown in at the end.  And now life has become so physically dynamic, so mentally and emotionally free, and so morally irresponsible that it (life) is bursting at the seams; it is going to pieces at the very moment of our greatest triumph in so many fields except in the field of living. We know everything about life except how to live it. We need nothing so desperately as we need something to bring life into total unity and into coherence and meaning and goal and purpose. We have become ripe, dead ripe for a rediscovery of the Kingdom of God. Everything else has broken down or is breaking down.”

Humanity is searching for something that works. Something that makes a difference in the outcomes of their lives. Something that guides and directs them, so they make choices that have positive impact on their outcomes. Something that is real. Something that has power and that is powerful. Something that is steadfast, something that is sure, and something that is eternal. Something that is trustworthy. Something worth living for and something worth dying for. Something with meaning, something with purpose, something worthwhile.

The Kingdom System of our God is all these things and more. We can and we must be aware of the provision of the Kingdom and all that it makes available to us.  We must know that we can trust our lives to its provisions. We must share the Good News.