Is the kingdom of God, as many assume, merely a warm feeling in one’s heart, or a vague idea about someday ‘going to heaven’? Or is the kingdom of God more real, tangible and powerful than most people have imagined? Continue reading
Tag Archives: faith
Do Faithful Christians Suffer?
Some believe that if one has enough faith and simply “claims God’s promises,” that his life will be blessed with happiness, abundance, good health. Is this what the Bible REALLY Teaches?
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Be Filled With Righteousness
Jesus said he who hungers and thirsts for righteousness will be filled (Matthew 5:6). How can this promise be fulfilled in you?
What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? If you hunger for food you sense a need for it and have a strong desire, a craving for it. Similarly if you thirst you sense a need for drink and have a strong desire for it. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness is a metaphor for longing for it, strongly desiring it, craving it (Psalm 119:20; 40).
What is righteousness? Continue reading
The Kingdom Suffers Violence
The weekly Sabbath, and the Feast of Tabernacles, which we recently observed with others of faith at time of this writing, both are intended to point us toward the time when God’s Kingdom will be established on the earth. Each Sabbath, and each Feast of Tabernacles, if kept properly, gives us a small foretaste of the Kingdom, to be reminded and convicted of its reality.
They remind us that the promised Kingdom of God is not just a pie-in-the-sky, Utopian dream, but an actual change in the government of the earth that will occur. It’s called the Kingdom of God because it will be a Kingdom, a literal government, established by the divine intervention of God Almighty himself in the world’s affairs and it will be ruled directly by God in the person of Jesus Christ (Daniel 7:14; Revelation 11:15).
Part of the reality of that promised Kingdom, however, is the fact that human beings have an opportunity to be participants in it, to have a part in the Kingdom of God, not as mere flesh and blood human beings, but as Sons of God changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ, helping him to administer truth, equity and justice on the earth (Daniel 7:27; Philippians 3:20-21; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 3:2; Revelation 20:6).
But what will it take for that opportunity to become a personal reality for each of us? From a personal standpoint, what will it take for you to be in God’s Kingdom? Continue reading
The Coronation of Joash
When Jesus Christ returns to the earth that will in certain respects be perhaps the greatest single event in history, at least since the creation of man. It will be a pivotal point in man’s history and in the working out of God’s plan for mankind (Acts 3:19-21).
As we study various parts of the Bible dealing with this great event and the times immediately preceding it, we discover that it will occur to the accompaniment of a veritable chorus of sounding trumpets.
This great event which signals, among other things, the restoration of genuine peace, prosperity and joy to a suffering humanity. is prophesied and prefigured in the Bible in many different places. That this event is so prominent should not surprise us, because it is the very focal point of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, which is in various ways the theme of the Bible from one end to the other.
Among a variety of historical events which prefigure events relating to the return of Jesus Christ and the restoration of God’s government to the earth is a particular one I want to discuss in this article. Specifically I want to discuss the coronation of King Joash of Judah, and circumstances associated with it. and show you how Joash’s coronation prefigures the coming of Jesus Christ. Continue reading