14.Feb.2008 Is God’s Kingdom First in your Life?
Why are we so passionate about church? Why are we so focused on living out and expressing our faith by our passion for what is important to God? Oftentimes we can become trapped in the mundaneness of life and miss the big picture. God is building His kingdom. And he is going to prevail because he loves the earth and its people. In that great love for the world, he designed this amazing plan to create an environment that he could dwell in, in the midst of us, so that we could move in and spread his spirit. This plan is the church. He is building his kingdom on earth by establishing his presence on earth through us.
The glory of God – Hebrew word “shakina” – it is like a shining light and is actually a physical manifestation of God’s love. God’s dream is to fill the whole earth with his light and glory. To bring his power to change people’s lives, deliver them from their past, save them and bring them into his full purpose. We are passionate about the church because we know that once we have an experience with God, God begins working in us. His glory begins to come upon us. He begins to deliver us from the kingdom of self and into the kingdom of God. It’s not until you allow yourself to be changed by God that the kingdom of God within us begins to be revealed. You have to make this decision even after your experience with Christ and you initial salvation.
God wants us to worship him and him alone. The problem Israel faced time and time again is that they would get tired. Their attention would drift and then would begin to worship other idols. The prophecy in Malachi is actually directed to the priest of the temple. The priest would receive your sacrifice, prepare it and offer it to God. It’s called an offering because there is no guarantee that God will receive it. The problem here was that the offerings were unacceptable to God because they came from the wrong heart – with the wrong intentions. Israel had promised God their best, but weren’t offering their best. And, instead of the priest standing up to the people and reminding them of their promises, the priests took the offerings anyway. God was repelled by the attitudes of their hearts and scolded the priests.
Giving, bringing God our best, putting God first and putting his house at the center of our world is the most important thing we can do. Allowing God to take preeminence in every area of our lives – because when we do that we are walking away from the kingdom of self and firmly establishing ourselves in the Kingdom of God where God is first, others are second are we are third. In the kingdom of self, it is all about us. In the kingdom of God, God is first. God doesn’t care if you have possessions. He wants you to enjoy your things, but when those things get in the way of his house or become more important than your walk with God, they become idols. Anything that subverts God’s place in your life becomes an idol.
God is a God of the heart and he sees everything that is going on in the heart. He sees anything that is trying to take His place – which for most of us is the job because we get more fulfillment out of what we do than who we are, which is how God intended it. God is more important that our marriage, family, job – everything. When you put God first, all your dreams, visions and desires – God says I will give them back to your more than you could imagine. We bring God our best. When we do, we establish a covenant with God and he says we will walk in his favor. When you have favor, you know God’s hand is on you. Things just seem to work for you rather than against you. The favor of God places you in a position that it doesn’t matter what you have physically! (because we cannot equate favor, blessing and happiness with how much we have!!!!).
In Haggai, God said to Israel “You are putting your own life above my house. You are storing up treasures for your own life as my house is in shambles. You make all this money and put it in your pockets, but it is like putting it into a pocket with holes because you have made all of these things more important than me.” The people repented and rebuilt the temple because the temple was the center of Jewish life. When Israel prospered it was because God’s house was a priority in the nation.
What is God’s will? The will of God is the Word of God. The Word became flesh in Jesus. Jesus – the Word of God – is the Will of God. Jesus proclaims “I am going to build my church. Not as the temples of old; I am going to build my church inside of you. I am going to build my church upon you having a revelation of who I am and then I am going to give you a revelation of who you are. I will bring my will to the earth through my people – the church. I will bring my glory to the earth through my church.” That glory is so beautiful – it will be the most important thing on earth. God’s house manifested all over the world. It’s going to shine in every corner of the earth. The glory of God is going to fill the earth because nothing will stop God’s glory or God bringing his will to the earth.
That’s why we love the house of God. That’s why we have a vision to plant more churches. We want the kingdom of God to invade this world through us. We want people to grow in God. The kingdom of God is the hope of the world. Is it the most important thing to us? It is hard sometimes to not get caught up with life and what we see around us. But we are not of this world! Our lives are not dependent on what we see here. God is our provider! Our lives are in his hands! God is first. When you put me first, you put my house first. Get out of your own problems for awhile and start focusing on others. When you do, you will be amazed at how small your problems look and how quickly things will begin to change. Give God control and come see things the way he does. Put him and others before yourself, and all these other things – your needs, desires and dreams – will be added back to you.
God, others, self. Grow in God. It starts with practical things – praying, being in the house, tithe, serve and give your time – put your self in a position to be around the things of God and do the things you know God works through. Growth comes through sacrifice. Get these things set. Get these foundations right so that God will be able to do everything he wants to do through you.
