The kingdom of God

Farming Faithfulness

Posted on by Betsy

Did you read Hamlet in high school? Many of us were exposed to this monumental Shakespearian “revenge tragedy” in our youth. Hamlet is a story of revenge gone wrong. Instructed by his father’s ghost to avenge his death, young Hamlet devises a way to kill his uncle for the murder. So Hamlet fakes madness, rejects his intended love interest Ophelia (who later drowns), stabs loyal attendant Polonius by accident behind a tapestry, and watches his mother die from poisoned wine intended for him. It ends with duel that kills both Laertes and Hamlet. The lesson of Hamlet is that revenge is a dish best not served. 

David’s Psalm 37 teaches the same thing. This wisdom psalm is reminiscent of Proverbs and follows a rough acrostic pattern where the first words of each line flow alphabetically from Alpha to Zed.

Psalm 37 (Common English Bible)

Don’t get upset over evildoers;
    don’t be jealous of those who do wrong,
2     because they will fade fast, like grass;
    they will wither like green vegetables.

David tells us not to fret. We all recognize that fretting is harmful and unproductive, and yet when evildoers prevail, it is hard not to fume. David teaches us instead to “farm faithfulness” by waiting on God to avenge us. God will eliminate the evil doers who fade fast like grass on a hot summer day. We don’t need to take action, for God will avenge us.

3 Trust the Lord and do good;
    live in the land, and farm faithfulness.
4 Enjoy the Lord,
    and he will give what your heart asks.
5 Commit your way to the Lord!
    Trust him! He will act
6     and will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
    your justice like high noon.
7 Be still before the Lord,
    and wait[b] for him.
Don’t get upset when someone gets ahead—
    someone who invents evil schemes.

Verses 3 through 7 are a list of directives that will help us from being distracted by our desire for revenge and enable us to farm that faithfulness that David encouraged. Look at the first words in each verse. We are instructed to enjoy the Lord, commit our way to God, trust God, be still, and don’t get upset. The invitation to delight in God reminds us that even in prison, Paul and Sirus sang as they awaited justice. God intends to give us the desires of our heart if we commit our ways to him. 

8 Let go of anger and leave rage behind!
    Don’t get upset—it will only lead to evil.
9 Because evildoers will be eliminated,
    but those who hope in the Lord—
    they will possess the land.
10 In just a little while the wicked won’t exist!
    If you go looking around their place,
    they won’t be there.
11 But the weak will inherit the land;
    they will enjoy a surplus of peace.
12 The wicked plot against the righteous,
    grinding their teeth at them.
13 But my Lord just laughs at them
    because he knows that their day is coming.
14 The wicked draw their swords and bend their bows
    to bring down the weak and the needy,
    to slaughter those whose way is right.
15 But the sword of the wicked will enter their own hearts!
    Their bows will be broken!

Psalm 37 offers pointers on how to live in and live as the Kingdom of God. We can see correlations between David’s writing and Jesus’ Beatitudes found in Matthew 5, particularly in the revelation that the meek shall inherit the land/earth in Psalm 37:11 and Matthew 5:5. All of the spiritual reversals in the Beatitudes are reflected in this psalm’s contrasts between the wicked and the righteous. Our Lord knew his Scriptures and certainly Psalm 37 served as a foundation to the words he spoke in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are we when we trust God’s justice and wait patiently for God to act.

Do you trust God enough to be patient or do you need to get revenge? What would it take for you emulate meekness? Be still. God is on your side.

Still Water by Stacy Murphy

Never Put Off ‘Til Tomorrow

Posted on by Betsy

Here is a macabre question for you today. If you were to die in the next hour, what business would you leave undone? What words would you wish you had said? What regrets would you have as you draw that last breath? What is left to finish in the next sixty minutes?

The human spirit is a powerful thing. I have watched dying people hang on for days and weeks in order to finish something. I’ll never forget sitting at a bedside with a church member for weeks as she waited for her estranged daughter to come. Every day she asked for her, and every day the daughter didn’t show up. Finally the other daughter drove to another state to get her sister, and when she walked in, she and her mother finally reconciled. They held each other and cried, forgave all past grievances, and expressed their love. The mother died peacefully in minutes.

Sorry for the “Debby Downer” tone of this devotional! But the question is legit. What unfinished business is lying around in your soul?

Today’s passage is a reminder that we never know the day or the hour of our last breath. We never know the moment when this world and all of its horror will suddenly be replaced by the Kingdom of God. (Come, Lord Jesus, COME!) The point is to be ready.

Matthew 25  (Common English Bible)

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten young bridesmaids who took their lamps and went out to meet the groom. 2 Now five of them were wise, and the other five were foolish. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but didn’t bring oil for them. 4 But the wise ones took their lamps and also brought containers of oil.

5 “When the groom was late in coming, they all became drowsy and went to sleep. 6 But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Look, the groom! Come out to meet him.’

7 “Then all those bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. 8 But the foolish bridesmaids said to the wise ones, ‘Give us some of your oil, because our lamps have gone out.’

Jesus is not being coy in this parable. He is clearly delineating the wise people from the foolish ones. The foolish people think they have time to make amends, pursue righteousness, reconcile bitter divisions, and walk in obedience. They are wrong.

The wise ones live each day as if it were the last one on earth. They are ready to meet their maker.

9 “But the wise bridesmaids replied, ‘No, because if we share with you, there won’t be enough for our lamps and yours. We have a better idea. You go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ 10 But while they were gone to buy oil, the groom came. Those who were ready went with him into the wedding. Then the door was shut.

11 “Later the other bridesmaids came and said, ‘Lord, lord, open the door for us.’

12 “But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’

It was too late for the foolish bridesmaids, but it’s not too late for you. Today is a good day to reflect on your readiness. Do you need to repent? Should you ask God for forgiveness? Have you hurt someone and need to apologize? Are there unreconciled relationships that require your attention?

Don’t wait. Tomorrow may be too late.

13 “Therefore, keep alert, because you don’t know the day or the hour.

The Hour is Upon Us by Michelle Robertson

RSVP

Posted on by Betsy

Have you ever thrown a party and nobody came? Imagine the frustration of that. You send the invitations, bake the cake, buy the decorations, and put together the little party favors for every guest. The day of the party you clean the house, set the table, sweep the front steps, change your clothes, and….nada. Nobody comes. Nobody calls. Nobody even has the manners to at least try to come up with a reason not to attend.

This is the story Jesus told when asked about the Kingdom of God. His listeners were the chief priests and the leaders of the temple. They had questioned Jesus’ authority to speak as the Son of God. They had allowed money lenders to defile the steps of the temple on the holy days. They had been listening to Jesus for three years, but they weren’t picking up what he was laying down.

Now they were out to get him.

Matthew 22 (The Message)

22 1-3 Jesus responded by telling still more stories. “God’s kingdom,” he said, “is like a king who threw a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out servants to call in all the invited guests. And they wouldn’t come!

4 “He sent out another round of servants, instructing them to tell the guests, ‘Look, everything is on the table, the prime rib is ready for carving. Come to the feast!’

5-7 “They only shrugged their shoulders and went off, one to weed his garden, another to work in his shop. The rest, with nothing better to do, beat up on the messengers and then killed them. The king was outraged and sent his soldiers to destroy those thugs and level their city.

Jesus throws down the authority gauntlet. He warns the Jewish leadership that their continued refusal to receive the Son of God was not going to end well. They may succeed in ensnaring Jesus for a time, but the ultimate victory was going to be his at the resurrection. God would destroy not only their hierarchy but their precious temple and the city it stood in.

He warns them that God wasn’t playing.

8-10 “Then he told his servants, ‘We have a wedding banquet all prepared but no guests. The ones I invited weren’t up to it. Go out into the busiest intersections in town and invite anyone you find to the banquet.’ The servants went out on the streets and rounded up everyone they laid eyes on, good and bad, regardless. And so the banquet was on—every place filled.“

And so the doors of the kingdom were flung wide open to the gentiles, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the poor, the blind, the marginal….suddenly the invitation was sent out to everyone. The banquet was on and everybody had a seat. The Bread of Life welcomed everyone to come and feast at HIS table.

You are invited as well. Maybe this is your moment to accept Christ into your heart. Jesus invites you to come inside and put your feet under his table. The food has been laid out on beautiful platters and the glasses are filled with Living Water. The meal has been bought for you with the precious blood of the lamb. In Christ, you will never hunger or thirst again. You can come and eat and stay as long as you like…even for the rest of your life. Will you come and partake?

RSVP.

Come and You Will Never Thirst Again by Kathy Schumacher

Timing is God’s Business

Posted on by Betsy

Think for a moment of all the times you have wished for something, and wanted something to happen that didn’t go the way you planned. Maybe you even prayed about it and your prayers were met with silence. I try to remind myself that God ALWAYS answers our prayers, but sometimes we don’t like the answer. For the most part, his response is one of three things: yes, no, or wait. Of course “wait” might be the hardest one to hear, as it leaves you in some kind of limbo, wondering if he heard you at all.

He did.

But his measure of time and his sense of timing are far higher than ours, just as his thoughts and his ways are higher. When things happen in God’s timing, it is always for our good. But we are an impatient people who want the world and we WANT IT NOW. (Cue Veruca Salt…)

Can you think of a time when you had to wait on God’s timing? Waiting is HARD.

In our Ascension passage today, we find the disciples watching Jesus return to his father after a 40-day period of their being with him after the resurrection. Their hearts are troubled. They don’t want him to leave, but they know that he will come back someday. He promises that if they remain in Jerusalem, they will receive a baptism even better than the one John performed:

Acts 1 (The Message)

1 1-5 Dear Theophilus, in the first volume of this book I wrote on everything that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he said good-bye to the apostles, the ones he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven. After his death, he presented himself alive to them in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, he talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God.

As they met and ate meals together, he told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but “must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from me. John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And soon.”

Waiting is an important part of this story. Things were not happening quickly, or according to their wishes, but rather at a pace that God had set. Part of what needed to happen during the waiting was for them to readjust their expectations of what Jesus’ return would actually bring:

6 When they were together for the last time they asked, “Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?”

They were still looking to Jesus to overthrow the existing power structure and establish his kingdom. Even with ALL they knew about their Messiah, they still didn’t quite get the fact that the kingdom he brought was an internal one. It was not time for Jesus to rule the kingdom of Israel just yet:

7-8 He told them, “You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.”

9-11 These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there, staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared—in white robes! They said, “You Galileans!—why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly—and mysteriously—as he left.”

As we anticipate the second coming of Christ, let us be about our Father’s work and spread the gospel to Jerusalem (your local community), Judea (your state and country), and Samaria (international destinations). There is much to do while we wait…but as we wait, let us remember that timing is the Father’s business. In his time, he makes all things beautiful.

Waiting for Sunrise