Inheriting the Kingdom

Posted on by korgrocker

“Even to have such lawsuits with one another is a defeat for you. Why not just accept the injustice and leave it at that? Why not let yourselves be cheated? Instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your fellow believers. Don’t you realise that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.”
1 Corinthians 6:7-10 NLT

The Kingdom of God is mentioned much in the New Testament, particularly from the lips of Jesus. The kingdom of God is the spiritual rule over the hearts and lives of those who willingly submit to God’s authority. Those who defy God’s authority and refuse to submit to Him are not part of the kingdom of God; in contrast, those who acknowledge the lordship of Christ and gladly surrender to God’s rule in their hearts are part of the kingdom of God. In this sense, the kingdom of God is spiritual, and we remember that Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world, as we read what He said at His trial before Pilate, “Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world”” (John 18:36). Importantly, Jesus preached that repentance is necessary to be a part of the kingdom of God, “From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near”” (Matthew 4:17).‭‭ In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul supplied the Corinthians with a list of sins that would exclude them from the Kingdom of God, and at the end he wrote that people who cheat others would be amongst the company of those outside the Kingdom. This was, of course, particularly relevant to those in the Corinthian church who had been initiating lawsuits against fellow believers. Paul wrote that it was better for them to let themselves be cheated than head for the courts. We note from the list of sins that these fall into three categories: sins against a person’s body, sins committed against others, and sins against God. But they all have one thing in common, in that they will exclude anyone who commits these sins from inheriting the Kingdom of God.

Right at the start of His conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus said, “ … I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3). In the next few verses, Jesus explained the process of spiritual rebirth, but did Nicodemus “get” it? He probably did, because we read about his involvement in the burial of Jesus in John 19:38-39, in the company of a man called Joseph. “Afterward Joseph of Arimathea, who had been a secret disciple of Jesus (because he feared the Jewish leaders), asked Pilate for permission to take down Jesus’ body. When Pilate gave permission, Joseph came and took the body away. With him came Nicodemus, the man who had come to Jesus at night. He brought about seventy-five pounds of perfumed ointment made from myrrh and aloes“. Joseph was the wealthy man who loaned Jesus his tomb for the weekend.

But back to the list of sins mentioned by Paul, sins that he said would exclude people from God’s Kingdom. Quite simply, there will be no sinners present anywhere associated with God because wicked people will be barred. It makes sense, really, because God, His kingdom, and everything to do with Him is sinless, pure, and holy. Absolute truth and righteousness will be found there. The Kingdom of God is, and will be eternally, a place where no sinners will be found and won’t be allowed to enter there either. A quote from “gotquestions.org”, “The Christian life is different from that of a non-Christian. Christians struggle against sin but have the God-given ability to overcome it. Unbelievers, who do not have the Spirit of God, remain slaves to their sin. Even if a Christian falls and lapses into sin, he will always eventually return to the Lord, and the struggle against sin will continue. But the Bible does not support the idea that a person who perpetually and unrepentantly engages in sin can indeed be a Christian”. There is little point in analysing each and every category of sin that Paul described, but we should note that there is an almighty battle going on in our times between those who are involved in sexual sins and those who believe what the Bible says about it. In fact, it is now going further, with the “gender wars” where, somehow, the devil has convinced men that they can become women and vice versa. And who would have thought that such a wicked ideology could even have been approved through legislation introduced by our lawmakers? Although not mentioned specifically in the list of sins, implementing such an ideology in a human being’s body is just as much a sin as any other. The sad thing in our days is that it is the secular feminists who are fighting the battle while the church is strangely silent. What a tragedy!

What do we pilgrims think about our inheritance, the Kingdom of God? In a sense, we have inherited it already.  We pilgrims, through the process of being born again, are now God’s children, and there will be an inheritance awaiting us. We are heirs to His Kingdom, and one day we will be in His presence forever. We may be getting weary about all the battles we are facing, but as Isaiah wrote, ” … strengthen those who have tired hands, and encourage those who have weak knees. Say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, and do not fear, for your God is coming to destroy your enemies. He is coming to save you”” (Isaiah 35:3-4). And so we pilgrims encourage our fellow believers, because the Lord will indeed soon come to save us. His Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, is closer than we think, and we are part of it in this life.

Inheriting the Kingdom of God is a given fact for believers, past, present and future, but do we pilgrims feel we have inherited it, or are we unsure? Well, Jesus made it quite clear in John 3:3, 5, “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ … Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit”. Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:13b-14, ” … When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory”. So all believers who believe in Jesus, have repented, and continue to repent, of their sins, become born-again children of God, with an inheritance guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.

Father God, you are truly our Father, and we are deeply thankful for an inheritance assured by You. We worship You today. Amen.

A Wonderful Inheritance

Posted on by korgrocker

“Lord, you alone are my inheritance, my cup of blessing. You guard all that is mine. The land you have given me is a pleasant land. What a wonderful inheritance!”
Psalm 16:5-6 NLT

A mixture of allegorical events this morning? What was David thinking about? The Israelites were indeed given a pleasant land by God, and David, as king, would have inherited its domain from the previous king, Saul. There was a time when David could even relax a bit, secure that God was looking out for him – 2 Samuel 7:1, “When King David was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all the surrounding enemies”. And we can just imagine David getting up in the morning and looking out over the land around him, feeling blessed by God’s provision. It was indeed a “wonderful inheritance” and one promised to Moses during his blazing bush encounter with God. God said to Moses, “So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live” (Exodus 3:8). 

But David also looked to God as his spiritual inheritance. In a sense He was, and is, everyone’s inheritance – well, for believers that is. We have come to know God because of an “inheritance” granted us through His Word, the Bible, and word of mouth by faithful servants who have shared the Gospel with us. David came to know God more directly, through spending long hours with his harp and flute watching his father’s sheep. And praise welled up inside David, as he declared that God was his “cup of blessing”. 

Do we pilgrims agree with David, and similarly declare that God has indeed blessed us, and, more, is our “pleasant land”? Do we enjoy our relationship with God? Or is it something we do by rote, going through religious motions on a Sunday, our minds dwelling on the roast dinner cooking in the oven at home? I’m sure that anyone reading this today knows that they are blessed by God and they too find within them a well of praise and worship, even a hint of excitement perhaps, as they drink the cup full of God’s blessings. To a worldly person, they have no idea of the blessings that could be waiting for them if they only opened the door into a relationship with God. The demands placed upon someone today, the busyness, the emotional draining, the struggle to fund their lives – all of this conspires to blind a person’s eyes to the reality that in a corner of their lives is a gateway into a new life. A life with God. An inheritance that is theirs for the asking. The invitation to this new life can often be seen in the wayside pulpits located outside churches, or even on the side of buses. Imagine receiving a letter one day, asking you to collect your inheritance from a lawyer somewhere, but not even bothering to turn up to find out what it is. Such is the response from people today, and in the process they are missing out on the same “cup of blessing” that David enjoyed, a cup that never runs dry.

And of course we remember that the “wonderful inheritance” we enjoy is not just for this life on earth. There will be a day when we find that much of what we glimpsed and yearned for will burst into an amazing panorama of God and all that He is, in a place we call Heaven. We have an “inheritance” that is without end and without limit.

Paul wrote, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). We believers have the potential to do mighty things for God with the resources that He has made available to us in the “pleasant land” located just a prayer away. We might not feel we have much power, as the demands of life drain us. We might not even believe that this verse is meant for us, preferring to think that it is only there for the real saints. But Paul wrote something profound and life changing about the “inheritance” we have available to us. Let us pause and reach out to God today, even daring to believe that His “cup of blessing” is limitless and will never run dry.

Dear Father God. You are the Source of all that is good in the land where You have placed us. Thank You for the many blessings poured out upon us. Amen.

Our Inheritance

Posted on by korgrocker

“Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for He chose us in advance, and He makes everything work out according to His plan. 
The Spirit is God’s guarantee that He will give us the inheritance He promised and that He has purchased us to be His own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify Him.”
‭Ephesians‬ ‭1:11, 14‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Paul continues by informing us that because we are part of His family, united with Christ, we have an inheritance. Note that verse 11 says we have already received this inheritance – it is not something that awaits us “at the right time”, as he said earlier in this chapter. Now normally we would only expect an inheritance to come our way after someone dies, leaving a Last Will and Testament that contains a clause in our favour. But God said that we have our inheritance now. Right now. This very minute. And we are reminded that we have our inheritance because we were chosen, and before we ask about how all this is happening, Paul says that God will make it all work out. All sorted because it’s in His plan.

So what is this inheritance we have? And how do we know we have it? If we list the benefits of being in God’s family, we find that amongst them is the assurance that one day we will be in His presence. Justified. Sanctified. Free of sickness and death. There will be no evil there. We will have a new body. And so on. And as we develop these thoughts, it is obvious that we will not assume all the benefits of our inheritance until we join God in Heaven. In fact, we might think that there are no obvious signs of our spiritual inheritance in this life at all. Except! Verse 14 tells us that God’s gift of His Spirit has been given to us as His guarantee. Through the Holy Spirit we can get a glimpse of our inheritance. Through the Holy Spirit we can start to enjoy our inheritance in this life. Later on in this Epistle we will find that through the Holy Spirit we will enjoy full access to God’s resources; His power can work through us into our daily lives now. 

We Christian’s are blessed people. Let us be a grateful people as well, grateful for this wonderful and amazing gift of the Holy Spirit. Through Him we can tap into God’s very presence, experiencing our wonderful inheritance now. And with Paul we will praise and glorify Him, our loving Heavenly Father. 

A Cup of Blessing

Posted on by korgrocker

“Lord, You alone are my inheritance, my cup of blessing. You guard all that is mine. The land You have given me is a pleasant land. What a wonderful inheritance!” Psalms‬ ‭16:5-6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I wandered around the pathways of Dean Woods in the West of Fife this morning, appreciating the new Spring growth, the bird song, enjoying the sense of hope as creation awoke and reached out and up towards our amazing Creator God. Bluebells abound, and other wild flowers are starting to emerge. I’m keeping an eye on a patch of wild strawberries, interested to see how they will do this year. Surely this is a pleasant land. But the word “land” can apply to lots of things and especially to any blessing that God has given us. Even in concrete-slabbed suburbia, God’s blessings can be found, for the ultimate blessing is God Himself. He will one day replace our current inheritance, the natural world we know, with a new heaven and earth, our future inheritance. And what is to come is secure – God is guarding it. It cannot be stolen or destroyed.

So we can be thankful for the land God has given us. And we can be thankful for the inheritance that is waiting for us. And once there we will enjoy God’s limitless provision; a cup of blessing that will never be empty.