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Monday, June 29, 2009
All You Need To Do About God
Matthew 6:7-13; Revelation 22:1-7
I once attended a prayer breakfast whose keynote speaker was the prime minister of the Kingdom of Tonga. He was a huge man, and in Tonga that turns out to be a key part of the job description. The National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our World puts it this way:
In the island kingdom of Tonga, fat is beautiful. Boys approve of plump girls. Tongans think the more important a man is, the fatter he should be. When the king takes a walk among the white wooden buildings of Nukualofa, the capital, everyone admires his weight -- over 300 pounds. Tonga's three groups of low green islands offer plenty of food for improving your beauty -- yams, pigs, coconut, and taro, a root vegetable as big as a football. Feasts are frequent, and guests are welcome.
Now, that little island kingdom filled with large island people can be found on a map about 2,000 miles east of Australia. But it's not really the geography that matters, as much as the king-size values that follow Tongans wherever in the world they move and live and have their being.
And so it is with the Kingdom of God.
If you asked in the 8th century B.C., "Where on earth is the Kingdom of God?" the answer would be, "In that little buffer zone on the Mediterranean coast midway between Egypt and Assyria." But around 30 A.D. Jesus had a radically different answer: "The Kingdom of God is within you." Your spiritual citizenship is not defined by where you are, but by who you are and what you live by.
He gave us a simple signal of that startling fact when he taught us the Lord's Prayer.
"Thy kingdom come," we pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." That's a prime example of the Hebraic pattern of parallelism -- You say something once and then you repeat it in a different way to underline your point.
So Jesus' prayer means that wherever in the world Christians show up, there's the Kingdom of God. At least in principle. For better or for worse.
Actually, ever since Adam and Eve throughout all of human history, God's Kingdom on earth has shown up always and only where men and women, boys and girls, accept God's authority and obey God's will.
How is God's will done in heaven? Promptly. With pleasure. Completely.
The Bible says God's angels are "spirits in the divine service," going here and there wherever God sends them, to make sure God's will gets done on earth as it is in heaven (Hebrews 1:14). No questions asked, no hesitation given. Just do it!
Same thing here and now, says Jesus. By people like you and me. If we really want it.
On reflection, who wouldn't want that? And why?
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:41 PM
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