Have you ever wondered what it is like to see the Kingdom of God in action?
Hi this is Wallace, Lisa’s husband. Our son, Trae, is graduating from CFNI’s third year worship program this week so we have been involved in various activities there like his ministerial certification service and a student written play on the Book of Ruth.
Worship during the CFNI certification service
Lisa waiting on Trae to get through the line for his certification
Boaz and Ruth in The Book of Ruth
All this activity, and discussion, has me thinking about what it really looks like when you walk in the Kingdom of God. We all know that when you get saved you change citizenship to a new kingdom, and the new kingdom has its own rules and laws that are not the same as the kingdom you just left.
The funny thing is that the kingdom is not observable. I remember that Jesus said that the kingdom was not observable, I just always thought that was a cute way of saying it’s in my heart. And what does that mean “It’s in my heart”? It sounds like there is no real substance to it and it is made up.
But the truth is very different. It is unobservable. That doesn’t mean it is not real. It means it works under different rules.
This last year I had the opportunity to watch it happen, and know it was happening as it occurred.
At one of our church campuses, we were handing out school supplies and backpacks for the upcoming school year. As I sat and watched this activity it became obvious that there were more kids than there were backpacks. Since I’m a leader some of the people came to me and asked “what should we do”? I let them know to do nothing different and let it play out.
There were about 20 more youth than there were backpacks.
Since I knew this was happening, I watched very closely. I wondered will I be able to see a backpack get created right before my eyes? Or will we just run out of backpacks, get names, and deal with it later? Every child got a backpack.
I’m watching very closely to see how the backpacks matched up to the children. Nothing happened. Nothing was observable. But there was plenty for every person.
Afterwards, the story became even more dramatic. It turned out there was an older girl who came in and saw there were not enough backpacks for everyone. So she turned around to do something else since it was a waste of her time. All the kids were organized by age so she knew she would not get one but had enough rejection in her life than go through that embarrassment. Lisa was at the front helping orchestrate the event. When the last child picked up their backpack, there was one left on the table. Lisa picked it up and set it behind her at the wall. When she immediately turned back around, it was gone.
We are citizens of another kingdom. Just because we don’t see it or understand it, doesn’t mean it is not real and tangible. I think when Jesus said “seek first the Kingdom of God” that he meant this is really important so I would learn this first.
I’m looking forward to Trae finishing this week at CFNI, and starting next week where the kingdom is needed.
© Copyright Wallace Swayze 2017