Kingdom Coming

"The mentality of the Pharisee places God at the centre of everything, but He's impersonal and powerless. Their God dwells mostly in the realm of theory and supposition. They excel at traditions that are convenient and reverence that's self-serving. But there's not much in the religious community that is actually Kingdom". Bill Johnson, Dreaming with God.

Michael Eaton was right – we in missional movements are the closest potential replicas of the Pharisee – if we take just one step away from intimacy with God, from a personal walk, we have this “mentality of the Pharisee”. “Conditions that are convenient”, Johnson writes. Even the convenience of busyness. I am discovering again that walking with Jesus means the flesh must die and the private compromises must be nailed to the Cross. It also means more people genuinely on my heart; more inconveniences to my packaged routines in the day and in the week; more absorbing people’s words (less deflecting); and more resisting of the world and the devil too, in drawing close to God. John Gill writes of “beating my body" (1 Cor 9:27), that “the strong man (in the Kingdom) is he who subdues his corruption".

But there is a lot of earnest desire in us, the modern day religious church communities, and especially missional-religious communities. We long to see the power of God, so when a few dare to venture up the mountain and into the most holy place, like Israel of old the many are going to be inspired. There is a desert to cross, old habits to break, pets to forsake – but God. He is with us; He is mighty to save; He is full of compassion; His Cross is brutal; He gives grace to the humble. This is a fine time to acknowledge that our puny efforts are not what is going to advance the gospel in our gut, let alone in the world.

I am trusting for new power on old truths. For new wine in old glasses. For church-known to become church-unrecognizable. I saw the first flush of this in the churches I have been privileged to visit on this trip to South Africa. And God will bring this work to completion. For them, and I pray in Jesus’ name for me and my family too, the proud-religious will hate and envy them, the penitent will adore Christ in them, the world will fear them. Come Lord Jesus! This life was never meant to be a never-ending theory exam. It was meant to be a feast in the presence of our enemies.