My friend and co-laborer for Jesus shared this little ditty in his recent newsletter that was worth sharing:
I wasn’t familar with Rend Collective Experiment, but I actually found their video for the song quoted above…
Build Your Kingdom Here
Dependence…learned from a couple of Jesus Stories
In the USA, we love the Declaration of Independence. In fact, rugged independence defines us at a deep level. In the spiritual world, it is the exact opposite…we are totally dependent! We enter into a relationship with God totally reliant, trusting on Him & Him alone! In truth, we are reliant upon God for everything!
On Sunday, we ventured into a story about Jesus which nails this concept:
People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
Here are kids…who know more about the kingdom of God because they are dependent! When it comes to our relationship with God we need to always remember that we are kids!
To put even a finer point on this, the very next story in the Gospel of Mark is about the Rich Young Ruler. Jesus doesn’t give the same answer to this man (i.e., “become like a child”). This Rich Young man claimed that he had kept everything in the law since being a child. And Jesus asked Him for something more than keeping the law, “You lack one thing, sell everything you have and give the money to the poor!”
This Rich Young Ruler was self-reliant. The issue wasn’t his stuff, but it was rather Who he trusted in. He trusted more in his own riches, his own youth, and himself than Jesus.
We must trust Jesus! Become little children and depend our our Great and Mighty God!!!
These thoughts were spawned from the message by Phil Helfer on 11/11/2012 @LosAltosGrace. Published in the MidWeek E-newsletter If you want to hear Pastor Phil Helfer talk through this message and much more, tune in online here.
Are you a Church Person or a Kingdom Person? by Brad Brisco
It is so easy for people in the church—especially those “doing church work,” including both staff and volunteers—to become “church-centric” rather than “Jesus-centric” or “Kingdom-centric.” We can become so fixated on the programs of the church that we lose sight of the real reason, or purpose, behind our activities. In a book called Liberating the Church, author Howard Snyder sums up this tendency in this way:
The church gets in trouble whenever it thinks it is in the church business rather than the Kingdom business. In the church business, people are concerned with church activities, religious behavior and spiritual things. In the Kingdom business, people are concerned with Kingdom activities, all human behavior and everything God has made, visible and invisible. Kingdom people see human affairs as saturated with spiritual meaning and Kingdom significance. Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy and truth. Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world. . . . If the church has one great need, it is this: To be set free for the Kingdom of God, to be liberated from itself as it has become in order to be itself as God intends. The church must be freed to participate fully in the economy of God.
Are you a church person or a Kingdom person? Does your church need to be “liberated” to participate more fully in God’s economy or mission?
— Brad Brisco
