Lindsay Willis

July 4th and the Kingdom of God

I love living in the US...would not want to live anywhere else (except maybe Vancouver, Canada!).  The US is a great country in so many ways.

But it is not the kingdom of God.  Today, I celebrate the freedom that we have to worship Jesus in our country, but I do not worship our country.

That point was brought home as I read through Daniel this week in our SOAP devotional.  In chapter 2, Kin NNebuchadnezzar had a dream and wanted all the magicians in Babylon to tell him the dream and interpret it.  No one could do it, but Daniel...and only because Daniel sought God for the answer. 

In Daniel's interpretation of the dream, he states the truth so simply.  Here it is from Daniel 2:44 in THE MESSAGE BIBLE: 

 “But throughout the history of these kingdoms, the God of heaven will be building a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will this kingdom ever fall under the domination of another.  In the end it will crush the other kingdoms and finish them off and come through it all standing strong and eternal.”

 

Eugene Peterson, the scholar behind the MESSAGE BIBLE writes in his notes about this passage:

 

“The purpose of the dream was to shift the center of trust from what humans do to what God does.  All human kingdoms are in decline, including your kingdom and mine.  Only what is done for God’s kingdom will last.  And the sooner we shift the center of trust from what we’re doing to what God is doing, the better off we’ll be, both here on earth and hereafter in eternity.”

 

So let's be thankful for our country, but remember that it too is temporal and will fail in the face of the Kingdom of God. 

 

Lovin SOAP

I am really enjoying SOAP right now (not that I don't enjoy it all the time, but these few days are some of my favorites!!).

We are reading Daniel now...and the first 6 chapters of Daniel are some of my favorite in the Bible.  They have leadership lessons, faith lessons, trusting God lessons, lessons on living our convictions, lessons on withstanding persecution....and many more.

Those four kids (Daniel, Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego) rock my world with their faith!  It inspires me to live a bigger faith life.

If you have not read SOAP recently, now is the time to jump back in!  Reading the BIble is one of the best things we can do to grow in our relationship with Jesus...and that has to be the primary purpose in our lives!