“The Kingdom is God’s total answer to man’s total need.”
– E. Stanley Jones
With each opportunity to teach the Kingdom I become increasingly convinced of two things: That the Kingdom is God’s answer to every human need, and that the church’s abandonment of the kingdom is the single greatest tragedy of modern times.
- Is the problem poverty? The kingdom is the answer.
- Is the problem crime? The kingdom is the answer.
- Is the problem hopelessness? The Kingdom is the answer.
- Is the problem greed? War? Racism? Broken families? Government corruption? The kingdom is the answer.
As long as the church holds forth the kingdom as the great plan of the ages, mankind has a hope, a plan, and a light to illuminate every problem. But when the church replaced “Thy kingdom come” with “Come quickly Lord” a vacuum ensued that sent history into chaos.
And nature, of course, abhors a vacuum. We abandoned kingdom hope and fell into despair. We abandoned kingdom compassion and opened the way to Marxism. We stepped away from the arts and funneled our gifts into self-entertainment, (“Christian concerts”, “Christian films”, and “Christian music”), to discover decency had fled our theaters and concert halls. We forgot the Kingdom call to steward nature and are reaping an environment that is strained and abused by consumerism and neglect. We deserted God’s government of the heart, (love, generosity, conscience, and personal responsibility), and inherited a behemoth state that strains to regulate everything from the words we use to the light bulbs we buy.
The way out of our mess is exactly as it was in Jesus day: to repent and embrace the kingdom, to seek the kingdom, to pray for the kingdom, and to make the kingdom our daily priority and pearl of great price.
Dispatches from the Shadowlands 
God and his kingdom is the only thing that is not temporary. God made us for himself. Everything in this world can be gone in a minute and none of it is what we are looking for. My life could end tomorrow and I am thankful that I have a wonderful, eternal future with God. I should not think this way but there are times when I wish I was in heaven instead of going on with this life.
I think how foolish and stupid we are to not have GOD in our lives.
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There’s a great discussion going on over at my Facebook page about this post. For those who haven’t had the opportunity to speak up, you can do so here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=189008710265&ref=mf
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Dear Don, I think that your questions are still very good. I guess that in our world sin is the main problem that causes all those things that you have named. Also, my opinion is that as long as we live sin will exist. This Kingdom of yours will come but too late for some people, not so many humans can see things further then their nose. I guess that problem in USA is same as in Bosnia, tradition, blinde rules, and lack of faith. There is a lot to it but i’ll save it for some other time.
We miss you a lot, Medina and i remember you all the time, all our adventures and living together. We sure would like you to visit when you come to Bosnia. Medina is pregnant, 3rd month now, and she is a full hand of work! She teaches math in high school, i am working with some hotdog stand busines that i have started for my brother Armin (with Tom’s idea of course). I own a small club downtown Ilijaš (some pool games, darts, playstation2 etc). We are menaging quite good. I am just about to get a job in a international company that sell computer software, so you can imagine i am quite exscited about it! I don’t have much time these days so i thougth i drop by and give you a note! 🙂 Much love. Dzenan
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YES!
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