“For the kingdom of God does not consist of food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Romans 14.17
God doesn’t make dietary rules. He creates a spiritual feast.
God’s kingdom deals with inner qualities produced by the Holy Spirit rather than the destruction of one’s brother through the imposition of personal preferences.
Jesus said: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45-46 NKJV). The “kingdom of heaven” is that “one pearl of great price. Jesus shows that, if we sought “the kingdom of heaven” like “a merchant seeking beautiful pearls,” when we found that precious “kingdom,” it would be worth “all that” we have. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world ” (John 18:36 NKJV), so Paul wrote, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2 NKJV). But when the Samaritans “believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized” (Acts 8:12 NKJV). What’s this worth to you?
This is Johnny Polk, with “Words of Wisdom” brought to you by the Oneida church of Christ.
Jesus physical resurrection has “infallible proofs.” He also spoke “of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:2-3 NKJV). What did Jesus say about “the kingdom of God?” 1) He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17 NKJV). “At hand,” meant “close, near by.” 2) He said, “there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matthew 16:28 NKJV). Either He lied, or else the kingdom came while people who heard Him were alive! 3) He said, “I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:18 NKJV). Either the kingdom came in the 1st Century, or there is no Lord’s Supper. Kingdom people observe it every 1st day of the week in the church of Christ (Acts 20:7)! The kingdom has come!
This is Johnny Polk, with “Words of Wisdom” brought to you by the Oneida church of Christ.
Luke tells of Jesus Christ, until “He was taken up” (Acts 1: 2 NKJV). “So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19 NKJV). On Pentecost, the Apostles preached David was still dead, but had prophesied “that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne” (Acts 2:29-30 NKJV). Everyone who preaches that Jesus is not yet on David’s throne is denying Jesus’s resurrection! If Jesus is not now on David’s throne, He could not have “delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14 NKJV). “Millennial-ism” denies the faith!
This is Johnny Polk, with “Words of Wisdom” brought to you by the Oneida church of Christ.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
There is certainly a sense in which the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Creator-God of heaven and earth rules over the entire universe. In his benediction, Jude wrote: “To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen” (Jude 25). On the other hand, nothing is more obvious than the fact that since the fall of mankind in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3), the majority of God’s creation has been in rebellion to Him. The apostle John, writing to Christians near the end of the first century A.D., said, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the wicked one” (I John 5:19). The apostle Paul showed that there are two spiritual realms when he affirmed that Christians have been delivered “from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13). Everybody is in one or the other of these domains: the power of darkness (the kingdom of Satan) or the realm of spiritual light (the kingdom of God’s dear Son) (Cf. Ephesians 5:8). Continue reading
In God’s true kingdom, an individual is not turned away from being served, or from serving, based on his or her ethnicity, birthplace, race, spoken language or nationality.
In God’s true kingdom, the only individual that need not apply (which is different from not being wanted) is the self-righteous; for the self-righteous will never realize how bad he or she needs Jesus…who just so happens to be the only way one can find his or her self in God’s kingdom to begin with (Colossians 1:12-14).
“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:6-8)
In the preface to his book Bring Out the Best in People, Alan Loy McGinnis wrote,
… virtually everyone is a motivator in one situation or another—when we’re persuading a friend to lose weight, or giving a pep talk to our kids, or trying to help a batter out of a slump, we’re motivators. Either we are doing it poorly or we are doing it well.
Christians are motivators, in a real way. They are not mere educators. They want people to do something, obey the gospel. They not only tell people what God has done in Christ and what each person must do to be saved — information —, but they also encourage and exhort so that people will be moved to act — motivation. Continue reading