ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

"Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

(Matthew 6:10)

When we pray these words, do we really mean it? What we are asking is for God's rule and reign to become a reality here on earth, just as it is in heaven. This challenges many of the traditions and paradigms within Christianity today.

Jesus' hermeneutic—his way of interpreting the Scriptures—was considered heretical by the religious scholars of his day. Our faith practice has also become a distortion of Jesus' gospel of the kingdom of God. We often embrace a disembodied "saved for heaven" theology. We have overemphasized getting people into heaven to the neglect of getting heaven into earth. The greatness of Christianity should be measured not by how many profess to be Christians but by how many people are serving those Christ served.

Jesus only had 120 followers when he left planet earth. By most standards, his ministry would be deemed an utter failure. But Jesus used a very different measure. Jesus saw faith as an active verb and not a noun. His followers practiced what I call mission evangelism. They understood that the mission was not to get the world into the church but to get the church into the world!

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are to be actively engaged in meeting the needs and closing the gaps of disparities for the least of these. The world will see the relevance of the gospel when we fully embrace and live the biblical mandate to love like Jesus. John Wesley called it the demonstration of "social holiness."

Too often we Christians suffer from a numbers neurosis. Let's quit worrying about how many of us there are and focus on being the hands and feet of Jesus in our homes, communities, and the outermost places of the world. It is time for us to rediscover and reclaim the message and mission of Jesus!

What can you do today to make your faith a verb, rather than a noun? What will you do to put feet to your faith?

JESUS' MISSION

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, ... to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor. (Isaiah 61:1-2)

You might say that these words from the prophet Isaiah were Jesus' mission statement. Jesus read these words in his inaugural message in his hometown. Isaiah had foretold "the year of the LORD's favor"—the dawn of the messianic kingdom—and Jesus proclaimed its arrival. Jesus' message focused on the kingdom of God's present influence in the world—a righting or restoration of God's created order on earth. He spoke not about going to heaven when we die, but about recognizing that heaven has come to earth.

When John sent word to Jesus from his prison cell, asking if he was truly the one who had been promised through the centuries by the prophets (Luke 7:18-19), Jesus did not go into a theological discourse. He simply pointed to the physical evidence of the presence of the power of God to complete the works of God: "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor" (Luke 7:22).

Jesus claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah whose presence would signify the arrival of God's kingdom and the restoration of all things. The evidence of his claims was not in his words but in the fruit of God's works. After Jesus read the passage from Isaiah 61, announcing the messianic presence in the synagogue in Nazareth, he dropped the big bombshell: "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21). The evidence was the direct intervention of God's heart and healing purpose in the lives of the poor and broken.

As followers of Jesus and citizens of the messianic kingdom, we are to continue Jesus' work. We are not to escape from the world's diseased brokenness but to engage the world and all those in it at the greatest places of need. We are not waiting for heaven but are actively rebuilding, restoring, and renewing the lives of broken people and shattered communities. Yes, we are waiting for the return of the King. But it is not passive waiting! As we wait, we are to faithfully demonstrate the good news of the kingdom by embracing a countercultural lifestyle—a visibly sacrificial lifestyle—that causes non-Christians to pay serious attention.

In what ways is your lifestyle "countercultural"? Think of one change you can make to begin living more sacrificially for the sake of the kingdom.

GOD'S FAVORED CHILD

Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor.

(James 2:5-6)

Every parent is guilty of showing favoritism at times to one child over the other. Often, the child who appears to get the most attention from a parent is not the one for whom everything is going smoothly, but the one who is struggling the most or most troubled at the time. One of my children is a lot like me. She is strong-willed and determined. Those years between eleventh grade and her sophomore year in college were challenging to say the least. My son is more like his mother. He was very obedient and never really rebelled. But just because Kristen had our intense focus didn't mean that we loved her more or less than her brother. For a time she simply required more focused attention.

God, our Heavenly Parent, does not show favoritism, as Romans 2:11 reminds us. Yet in the Bible God clearly gives priority to the poor. Jesus affirms this priority in the parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14). God's guests at the party ultimately become the poor, crippled, lame, and blind.

Why does God give such priority to the poor?

The world tends to determine and...