Jesus is King

Well I’ve been pretty busy these past couple weeks due to the fact that me and my sweet wifey were both hired to the same university in China (praise the Lord) and such university after hiring us then proceeded to let us know that we needed to be there in by mid-June – which meant that all the various errands that we were planning to do over the course of 3 months now just got pushed into the span of 3 weeks.  Throw that in with some mandatory overtime and heat exhaustion and there you would have the past 2 weeks of my life – yeah.

Anyway, I’ve gotten it in my heart to write a series of blog articles where my present understanding of theology is placed under the Truth that seemed to be nearest and dearest to Jesus’ Heart while He walked the earth: The Kingdom of God.  And hopefully I’ll be able to get a couple blog posts in before I leave, but before I write about hope, salvation, faith, Hell, grace, identity, lifestyle and so on I believe it’s important to lay the foundational understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven – Jesus is King and you are not.

See, I’m an American and in America (like I’m sure most of us know) our form of government is a Democracy.  So from youth the children of this blessed nation are taught that each individual has a say in how the country is to be run.  If there is a leader that we don’t feel is making the right policies we are told that we can vote against that individual and attempt to elect someone that we feel is more suited to lead.  And this is true and a very good thing at that.  Obviously I’m not here to make any sort of statement about our governmental system – I love our government – but the side effect of having a culture where our leaders are essentially at the mercy of our own will is that independence and rebellion to all forms of authority has become the societal norm.  Somewhere deeply ingrained in American culture is the belief that if authority isn’t an extension of “my personal beliefs” that it is either to be resisted and replaced or run from at all costs.

One merely has to surf through the various multi-media outlets of the internet, television and the radio to simply find that America celebrates independence – whether its Pink Floyd encouraging kids not to listen to their teachers or a documentary about James Dean, the Rebel without a cause – we somehow find virtue in rebellion.  And what’s even worse is that this line of thinking has infiltrated the Church. 

The general state of American Christianity has become what I would call “the Democracy of Heaven” where we essentially want the benefits of living in Heaven but we don’t really like the notion that God actually gets to tell us how to live our lives.  The clearest manifestation of this attitude is seen in how we treat the Bible and how we treat those who teach from it.

The Bible is the inspired Word of God – written by those who God found faithful, penned under the anointing of the Spirit, watched over by God as it was compiled and preserved throughout the generations so that we could have authoritative insight concerning the things of God.  Simply put, God didn’t leave us in the dark – He gave us a lamp so to speak that we can use as a discerning guide that shows us who He is, who we are, what His plan for us is and how we are to live in light of such things.

Because the Bible is authoritative there can only be one appropriate response to it.  We see a picture of this response describe by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 66:2 where God reveals that He shows favor upon an individual who is, “humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at My Word”.  God’s looking for something here – it’s a posture of the heart.  It’s an attitude that essentially states, “Jesus is right and I am wrong”.  It doesn’t seek to find theological loopholes that would give us a way out of total obedience.  It doesn’t emphasize an aspect of Jesus to the degree that it ignores other things that He said.  It is the honest, humble approach to God before His Word asking our King to teach us how to live as a citizen of His Kingdom.

Whether we like it or not this is the only way into the Kingdom.  If you want to live in Heaven you have to submit to the King – Jesus and what He said in His Word.  Otherwise you might find yourself among the many that Jesus prophesied would come to Him on the last day expecting to enter into the Kingdom of God only to realize that their verbal confession of loyalty to Jesus wasn’t matched by a submitted life to which Jesus will respond, “Away from Me you who practice lawlessness” (aka rebellion against the King) – see Matthew 7:21-23.

May we all approach the King with a bowed knee and live a life that is a reflection of such.

In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.