Thy Kingdom Come

Our Father, Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed Be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, On Earth As It Is In Heaven.

Jesus talks quite a bit about the Kingdom of God.  In fact, the Kingdom of God may actually be of greater attention than the salvation theology that most Churches place as the center of the Christian faith.  Whether this is in fact true or not there isn't another topic that is of greater focus of Jesus' ministry than the Kingdom of God.  So, it should be a primary focus of the faith.  

The Kingdom of God that Jesus talked about has two dimensions that are similar but (as I see it) not exactly the same.  Jesus said Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, On Earth As It Is In Heaven.  The church often thinks of Heaven as the ultimate destiny, but I'm not so sure of that.  I think that it may in fact be that Earth is the ultimate destiny and Heaven is a mere vision that should be our aim, but we ultimately realize can never fully be achieved.  

That understanding of the Kingdom of God, I certainly realize, is quite contrary to the teachings of the church, and does quite have the same eternal consequence as the real heaven.  But, this vision is in fact the one we should hold as our vision since it is what we can feel and experience, and is ultimately more real, since what proof do we have that Heaven is in fact a real thing.  No, the Heaven from the Lord's prayer is not a real, eternal place, but rather a vision that we should put our energy into forming and becoming passionate about and sharing and spreading to the world.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Heaven, Hell, Demons, and Bringing the Kingdom to Earth

Susie shared the news with us this morning that Lauren told her that Carlos Griego now claims he is no longer a Christian.  It wasn't a huge surprise.  Carlos went through a whole lot through the Redemption experinece.  Susie said she thinks he processed the experience in a isolated way rather than having a community of believers around him to process it.  That makes sense.  I think that could have made a huge difference.   However, when you take a literal view of the Bible, then you try to think critically about whether or not it is true, you're definitely going to run into some challenging truths.   A few of these truths are heaven, hell, and demons.  At least this is what Elijah expressed this morning with some measure of frutration with these traditional beliefs held by the church.  One argument he used is that the Israelites did not have the concept of an afterlife.  Rather they held the notion that once you die that is th...
Read more

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

 I have little doubt that the disciples of Jesus believed that he resurrected as the claimed.  Their devotion to their new sect of judaism was lived out with such furvor and passion that they must have really believed that Jesus was raised from the dead.  There were stories from people that claimed to be with Jesus and even stories of groups of people that claimed to be with Jesus.  However, I wonder where these stories started and how they changed over the many times they were retold and eventually ended up in the Bible.  The early Christ followers were so excited about the excitement created by their leader and the devotion of his followers that they would not allow this new faith to just fade away.  So, their faith and belief in the risen messiah is something that can hardly be questioned.  It was very real.   The question that I bring is whether or not the stories were based on reality or made up.   When I think back to the many...
Read more

Heroes of the Faith

Spanish Carmelite mystic John of the Cross [1542–1591]. they too were inflamed with “love’s urgent longings”; they too went out into the dazzling dark with “no other light or guide than the [flame] that burned in [their] hearts.” [6] The Spirit of the Lord descended, and they experienced an inflow of divine love that gushed up, uniting their hearts in prayer and song and shout that “made heaven ring.”  Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797). “O, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you?”
Read more