“...if My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight…” John 18:36
There comes a time in everyone’s life where they have to fight.
Growing up in a family of eight, I had to duke it out with my brothers for the last slice of pizza. Soldiers go overseas to fight for freedom (or, to open up a touchy subject, for political interests…).
Mothers will fight for their children.
Believe me, nobody wants to get between a mama grizzly and her cubs high in the mountains. That doesn’t make for a good day.
Jesus said: “...the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” Matthew 11:12
Someone said: “to find God, you have to have the tenacity of a bulldog”.
I feel that. In the middle of everything–like right now, my life feels super busy–it’s super easy to lose focus. All these things keep shouting at me.
“Hungry! Food?”
“Is she mad at me?”
“Get that project finished already!”
“I’d like to watch that one show…”
“You’d better deal with that bill before the deadline!”
I mean, I’m sure you can fill in the blank. I’m sure they are shouting at you, too. Just a few minutes on social media, you’ll encounter a few hundred voices shouting:
“Look this way! Pay attention to this!”
But in the middle of it, there’s something–Someone greater–worth fighting for.
Jesus said: “Your kingdom come…on earth as it is in Heaven.”
How’s that Heavenly Kingdom, way up there, going to get all the way down here on earth, again?
Miracle? Apocalypse?
Us!
For all who chose to respond to God’s will and God’s redemption, God threw us the keys. The keys to the Kingdom.
We are not meant to twiddle our thumbs until paradise. We are not meant to do our best and go home someday.
Oh, no.
Heaven is here, as much as we bring it to earth. We’re meant to stage a foreign invasion on enemy soil. We are meant to take back this land from demonic forces.
This Heavenly kingdom Jesus spoke so much about is in:
“...righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”. (Romans 14:17)
“Joy unspeakable…”
“Peace that passes understanding…”
“Fullness of joy…”
“How great is your faith…”
That starts with us. With me. With you.
Believe me, it’s a war.
Can’t you feel it? So many things come to steal that peace and joy in my life.
“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith…” 2 Corinthians 13:5.
Someone described it like checking your gauges on your vehicle.
Every day I have to check in. How am I doing? Really?
One day, a guy treated me completely dismissively. Insecurity reared its ugly head. I went into a tailspin.
Another time, I woke up just on the wrong side of the bed. Early, I had to work, people were being annoying. I felt like biting someone’s head off.
Yet another time, trying to keep up with everything on my plate, I felt my blood pressure rising. I knew I was stressing.
I wasn’t proud of it, but I was. I got my eyes off the Lord, and it was wearing on my body and my life.
I have to fight to return to stay in peace and joy. To stay in where God has me. To stay connected to the Lord. It’s a daily battle. A daily choice. I have to do whatever it takes to return to God’s kingdom.
I remember oppression hitting me so hard, I couldn’t break it. I tried everything I could think of.
Finally, I contacted a fellow believer. It wasn’t easy to make myself vulnerable, but I had to.
“Can you pray with me?” I asked him. “Oppression is hitting me like a ton of bricks, and I can’t shake it.”
We prayed. It left.
When rejection came knocking–or oppression, or any number of things–I found a quiet place to belt out my heart to the Lord where I wouldn’t get weird looks until God became more magnified
in my heart than anything else, and peace and joy returned.
Sometimes, it took some understanding. Seeking the Lord to return to His presence.
Someone asked me to buy a bunch of doughnuts for everyone. It was such a little thing, but the way they asked me seemed abrupt.
They felt I needed to pitch in more financially.
I didn’t really respond. I just froze up. We moved on.
Later that day, I felt super out of sorts.
I finally had to stop and get alone with the Lord.
What was locking me up so much?
I went back to that moment with the doughnuts and realized I hadn’t stayed soft to God’s leading in the matter. I’d just frozen up.
I realized I needed to respond, not just freeze up.
I had nothing against paying for the doughnuts, it was merely the manner it had been presented to me that threw me off.
“Hey? You gonna pay for these doughnuts I’m buying?”
I believed God WAS speaking for me to pay for them. After all, there’s a spiritual law for giving and receiving.
There’s a difference between responding to the Lord and just being a nice guy.
Having a giving heart is great. But sometimes we are just trying to be nice.
“Just being nice” will drain you. Jesus wasn’t a nice guy.
According to the Gospel of Luke, He had barely started His ministry when He made people so mad, they were ready to hurl Him off a cliff. (Luke 4:29)
For instance, awhile back, I was involved in a building project.
In the middle of it, it looked like we might be short on a certain kind of barnwood.
I happened to have my own personal stash of that kind of barnwood that I’d recently acquired for a different project. As I examined the material needed for the building project, I realized we could come up short. So I started to offer some of my barnwood, free of charge, to make sure we had enough to finish.
God rebuked me. “You are just being a nice guy. I never told you to offer that barnwood.” God said. “What made you think I hadn’t provided enough wood for this building project, anyways?”
As it turned out, we had more than enough of the building material without my contribution. Sometimes, out of pressure or obligation, I’ve felt moved to give. But, again, I didn’t need to be nice to enter the Kingdom of God. I just needed to respond to His leading, and let the rest go.
At times, I’ll give money to the homeless. At times, I don’t feel that still, small Voice release me to give. So I’ve learned not to.
Anyways, back to the doughnut story. I felt that still, small Voice quicken me to respond to that guy instead of freeze up. So I retraced my steps.
“Can I still pay for the doughnuts?” I asked the guy.
Of course, he was okay with it. I gave him the five dollars. As I chose to respond, freedom, peace, and joy returned. I was back in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Every single day, the Kingdom is worth contending for.
The same Jesus who said His servants would fight is fighting with you. The same Spirit who raised Him from the dead lives in you.
So examine yourself. Check your gauges. Refuse to let the noise steal your peace. Refuse to settle.
Rise up. Take the Kingdom by force.
Bring Heaven to earth–starting with your own heart.
Fight the good fight.
