Welcome!

Gifts of Life Community Fellowship is a place to fellowship with like-minded believers in collective praise, collective thought and collective unity through the Way, the Truth and the Life, Jesus, the Christ.

Monday, August 15, 2011

"Real" Life vs. Kingdom Life

What is important to your life?  What aspects of existence make up most people's lives?

Well, there are basics such as:
  • Housing
  • Food
  • Clothing
  • Income
  • Transportation
And then there are certain "luxuries" that may or may not be considered a luxury to you, like:
  • communication
  • education
  • entertainment
  • travel
And then there are certain needs attached to emotions, desires and aspirations that might be central to status, geography and or age, like:
  • Marriage
  • Safety
  • Health
  • Retirement
  • Children
  • Charity
  • Spirituality
  • Government
  • Career
  • Family
  • Economics
All of these things are important to us in one aspect or another.  And from the very time we are born - how we feel and think about these matters begins to be taught and ingrained ingrained into our psyche - even the very fundamentals of our personalities.

How we then think about these matters shape what we do about them.  And what we do influences who we do them with and all other surrounding circumstances of our lives.  And then, these circumstances and the people involved in them, shape all of our emotions, thoughts and feelings.

This is the "real" world.  This is "real" life.  It's life as we know it.  And Christian life addresses each and every one of the items in the lists above - individually.

But scripture also deals with these very same topics collectively too. When scripture says "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand," the Word of God is telling us to turn away from what we know and what we think.  We need to repent from this so-called "real" life and exchange it for a Kingdom life.

See part of the problem with us understanding this concept is that we automatically hear that people need repentance from sin or wickedness when we hear this scripture.  However, to "repent" means to turn away or to turn from.  In the Hebrew, the concept of repentance is to change your thinking.

And what we are to turn away from is inherent in what we're supposed to turn towards:  If we turn towards the Kingdom of God, it stands to reason that we are turning away from the kingdom of man - or the kingdom of this world.  And if we're turning away from our thoughts, then we're turning away from what we feel, think and know in the physical and in our souls.

So, what's left?

In truth, we generally live our lives in 2 dimensions: the physical and the soul - which is the compilation of our mind (our intellect), our will and our emotions.

But scripture describes us as 3 dimensional beings.  After all, we were created in the image of God the creator who is God the Father; God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.  And when that God created us in their image, He breathed the spirit of life into mankind.

That's right - we are body, soul and spirit.  And, it stands to reason that since God is a spirit we can only operate in the Kingdom of God through our spirits.  Our spirit is our connection to God, through our soul that can affect the natural.

Before confessing Jesus as Lord by faith, our natural or physical mind controls our souls and our spirit is essentially dead in Christ.  But through faith in Jesus Christ and growth in the knowledge of Truth, our spirit is born again and we can learn to have our spirit control our soul and gain power over what happens in the physical.  This is Kingdom living.

Kingdom living is thoroughly and completely different from modern day Christianity of any denomination.

A Kingdom life is one of power, authority, dominion and the fullness of Christ and His spirit poured out upon all flesh so that the sons and daughters of God (the co-heirs - brothers and sisters to Christ) prophesy, walk in the Spirit, and do greater things that of Jesus. 

A Kingdom life is a supernatural life and for the Christian, it begins by repenting from worldly thinking.  Or in other words it means not conforming to the ways of the world, but being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).

And remember that initial list of all the various aspects of life? By living a Kingdom life, we can affect supernatural change in every one of those areas that goes far beyond what the world thinks about them, and even what the average Christian or even Pastor says about them.

When you repent from a thought or action, you don't necessarily just "turn around".  If you simply turn around, you might end up facing in the same direction - doing the same things and thinking the same things as before.  True repentance means to turn away - to face the opposite direction and do something (and think something) entirely different.

Do you dare think that differently?

Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand - it's close; it's nearby; it's very nearly in your grasp... Which do you choose?

The "real" life of a Christian or the Kingdom life of a Believer?  What do you believe?

Power, love & peace, ya'll -
~Min. Dez

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.