The Kingdom…

The kingdom is found through:

  • Forsaking everything in this world and every perception we ever had, “counting it as rubbish that we might gain Christ [it]” (Phil. 3). That means:
    • Fealty to any person(s) or thing
    • Love of money
    • Attachments to and hopes in worldly governments
    • Prior perceptions concerning what it means to be Christian
  • Initially, disciplining ourselves [“willing to do His will” (John 7)] to:
    • Spend time with Him in prayer and study
    • Being obedient to His commands to love and serve others
    • Seek out the regular fellowship of others on this journey
    • “Present our bodies to Him as living sacrifices” (Rom. 12)
  • Realizing the transformation must take place in our minds:
    • We must “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” above all else
    • We can “no longer be conformed to this world” if we want to enter the kingdom but must “be transformed by the renewing of our minds to prove what the will of God is [that we become the kingdom citizens He came to make us]”
    • The kingdom involves an entire change of perspective that will transform the way we view, react to, and treat everything
    • We must be willing to “take the red pill and go all the way down the Rabbit hole.”
  • Resulting [personally] in Hebrews 12 maturity:
    • That which began with oft unpleasant disciplines eventually culminating in “the peaceful fruit of righteousness”
    • Understanding the fruit of the kingdom is always inner peace regardless of whatever the world may throw at us
    • Realizing whenever we start losing our peace we are stepping out of the kingdom and back into the world
    • An abiding relationship with Christ (John 15), where we can confidently say, “It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in and through us, and the life we now live we live for Jesus who loved us enough to die for us” (Gal. 2)
  • Resulting [corporately] in John 17 kingdom community: