Drunken Mystic

For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power.  1 Cor 4:20

I love words.  I love to hear them.   I love to read them.  If you’ve read my stuff or heard me teach, you know I love to use them.

But the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk.  It is a matter of power.

Solomon wrote that there is no end to books.  He never even went into a Borders or Christian bookstore, and he still knew that to be true.

Every time I turn around, I hear about a new book, a new author, a new blog.  Modern Christianity is addicted to “the new idea.”  In an effort to be relevant and successful, we are constantly on the search for new ideas.  And the measure of success is usually higher attendance, greater numbers.

Hitler spoke to millions.  Any charismatic man with style and a catch phrase can get people to listen and cheer.  If numbers were a measure of success, Jesus’ ministry on earth would be considered an abject failure.

The measure of the Kingdom is power.  What power?

Jesus, speaking of Himself to prove the coming Kingdom, quoted from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor, He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

When the disciples of John asked for the Baptist, “Are you the Coming One or do we look for another?” – His answer:

“Tell him: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.  And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

This should be the answer if someone asks, are you a Christian?  Are you the Church?

Are you what we’ve been looking for?

If the answer is YES, then you are participating in the right Kingdom.  If your answer is, “Well, we sit around and talk a whole lot about it,” then you might need to reexamine some things.

I believe it was Ravenhill who said, “If preaching would bring a revival, we would have had one by now.”

And I’m skeptical that the answer is another book to be read.  Get in God’s face and beg, “Keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking” and it will be opened to you.

I’ve seen people changed by the Kingdom.  People hearing and following God.  Forsaking this world for Christ.  Mourning turned into dancing.  Love and forgiveness instead of hate.  Giving without a thought for yourself.  Brokenness that leads to righteousness.  Physical healing.  Spiritual deliverance.

And good God, I want to see more!

I want to stand before Him on that day and hear, “Well done!” not “Well said.”

I don’t see the Bible giving the latter as an option.

Peace.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 8:44 am and is filed under misc messages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.