Mark 11-13: The Kingdom of Heaven

I'll admit to you guys, today is an "off" day for me. Which is both, I think, ok and also super convicting because of what I read about today. Time is short. The hour is drawing near. I don't have the luxury of taking a day off from following the Lord.

The first section is about the "Triumphal Entry"of Jesus into the temple. The people all around him watch as he enters on a donkey and they go crazy shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!". But the thing is, these are the very same people who a couple chapters later will be yelling "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

How can this be? What did they miss? 

They never really understood the kingdom of God and so they totally missed what the King was meant to come and do. When all these Jewish people saw Jesus, the King of the kingdom of heaven about to establish his rule, they thought this meant he was going to kick some Roman butt. But if they'd been listening all along, they would have realized that when Jesus said "pray for your enemies and do good to those who hurt and abuse you", he meant those very same Romans. And when he told his disciples who thought they were supposed to pick up swords and start chopping the enemies ears off that they were actually supposed to put their swords away and love those same soldiers, he actually meant it.

And that when Jesus said he was about to "come into his kingdom", his throne was the cross. Because that is what power looks like in the kingdom of heaven. It looks like laying down your life for the very people who want to kill you. (That's what Jesus did for us after all. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Rom. 5:8. He loved us while we were so unlovable that we spent our free time killing him.)

Jesus loved the Romans as much as he loved the Jews. And the Jews completely missed that. They hadn't realized that the kingdom of heaven has no borders and that it just doesn't rule under a flag of stars and stripes. It rules under the banner of sacrificial love that lays down its life for its friends - which includes the entire human race, even those we originally saw as enemies before we came to Christ. (Yes, there are Christians in Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan. And the Chinese church gains 125,000 new converts a day. And they are working on sending thousands of missionaries right into the heart of the Middle East as we speak in order to bring the Gospel back to the very place it all began. Brothers and sisters, we seriously need a new paradigm for the kingdom of heaven and who exactly our brothers and sisters are.) 

Do you ever wonder what got such a nice guy as Jesus crucified? I all he did was walk around and love everybody. (Even when he was yelling at the Pharisees and religious leaders, he was doing it out of love, that they might be convicted and turn to him)  And that's exactly what got him killed: loving everyone. He was a threat to power. He was establishing a new Kingdom. A new Power Structure. One that would grow like yeast in a piece of dough, slowly and quietly working its way into every corner of the earth. And this kingdom doesn't play by the rules all the other kingdoms of this earth. It functions on rules like "love your enemies" and "if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and give them a better aim at the other one" and "if someone takes your coat, just them your shirt also" (I had a Christian professor whose car got stolen and instead of getting all bent out of shape about it like most of us would, he knelt down on the ground with with little son and prayed for that person. yep, that's what Jesus was talking about and he seriously meant it.) And this goes completely against this worlds "My side is better than yours!" mentality. It completely breaks down all divisions of gender, race, country, political party, ect. and it creates one thing out of every human being on this earth: a brother or a sister. 

And powerful people just don't want someone like that walking around messing everything up. Because if people really started living this way, a lot of powerful people would be out of a job... Brothers and sisters, we must wake up and see that we absolutely cannot live to please both God and the world. They are literally polar opposites and you cannot please God unless you give up the rules of this world and start living by his rules instead. And his are all based on love while this world's rules are all based on hate and division. (Peace on this earth will only come through Jesus Christ. All other peace is false and will only lead to horrors. Ex: Communism was the attempt to bring a utopia of peace to this earth through government in the absence of God. And look what it brought the world. This earth is groaning for peace but all its efforts will only make things incredibly worse because they have rejected the Prince of Peace. And they have not learned the true meaning of love: self-sacrifice.)

That's all I will say for today because it is a whole lot to chew on. I remember the exact place I was when I realized that Jesus wanted me to "pledge my allegiance" to Him over and above my country, political party, ect. Please ask God to show you what all this means. He really does love every person on this earth and wants us to do the same in tangible ways while we walk this earth.