Inner transformation & Kingdom of God

<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>The Kingdom of God is surely central to Christianity. We may note that the opening petition of the so-called Lord’s Prayer (which should really be called the “Disciples’ Prayer”, as it is really the model of prayer given by Jesus to His followers – but enough of that for now!) asks that the Father’s Name be kept holy, the His Kingdom will come and that His will be done in the earthly sphere as it already is in the heavenly. All of this means one thing – that God be worshipped in respectful awe and that He be surrendered to in every aspect of life, thought and activity. Imagine what that would be like; the Kingdom fully manifested on Earth as in Heaven. No more sin, no more war, no more sickness. Nobody would be rich and nobody poor as all would share with one another the resources of the Earth whilst avoiding the exploitation of those resources that despoil the natural world. All people would accept God as Father and, as such, would see one another as brothers and sisters of the same family of redeemed humanity. All will love one another with a love that reflects the very Love by which the Members of the Holy Trinity love each other. We can only speculate as to what supernatural powers would be released through a humanity in perfect harmony with God, but we may well believe that what might now seem to fantastic to believe will then be as “natural” as breathing! This is something that can never be legislated into existence by a “Christian” government. It is far beyond a revival of Christian morality. It is nothing less than an inner transformation of human beings into the likeness of Christ Himself.</span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>If Jesus taught His disciples to pray for the coming of the Kingdom (as He quite plainly did) then we can believe that it will indeed come. It is God’s greatest desire to see it established on Earth and, therefore, there can be no doubt that the prayer taught by God the Son in perfect harmony with the will of God the Father will be answered! </span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>There are two reasons, I think, why it tarries. </span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>First, God wants all humanity to hear the Gospel (2 Peter 3:9).</span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>Secondly, the church has not sufficiently acted in a way to “hasten it on” (2 Peter 3:12).</span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>Number two incorporates number one to some degree. That is to say, part of the “hastening” involves taking the Gospel to the end of the Earth. But I think that there is more to it than this. Can we really say that, in the main, we Christians desire the full coming of the Kingdom, even though we might acknowledge intellectually that is really is God’s greatest desire for this planet? Is it really central to our prayers and, like the pattern of prayer given us by the Lord Himself, the first petition on our list?</span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>For the majority of us, the answer is almost certainly “No”. But why? Why is the total rule of God not the chief desire most fervent prayer of His people?</span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>May it be suggested that the reason is simply that we are not sufficiently like Christ. We may have “the mind of Christ”(1 Cor. 2:16) and be thinking “Christianly” to some degree, but not sufficiently for our deepest desires to be identical with His. We may truly believe that one day we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as he is, but we do not take sufficiently seriously the power of the Holy Spirit by Whom we are progressively transformed into His likeness here and now (2 Cor. 3:18). Perhaps this is because we too often only “see” Christ intellectually (theologically) and not relationally as a Person who is alive and always present with us. If we were more aware of the presence of Christ all the time, we would experience a greater transformation into His likeness and a greater desire to be thus transformed. One of the results of this transformation would be the transformation of our desires into His desires, such as the full manifestation of the Kingdom.</span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>But it is not sufficient to simply have head knowledge that Christ is with us. For a real and deep spiritual transformation increasingly into His likeness to take place, this must be “heart” knowledge as well. But what does this mean exactly?</span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>Back in Seventeenth Century England, the Puritan Francis Rous taught that “The soul has two eyes – one human reason, the other far excelling that, a divine and spiritual Light … By it the soul doth see spiritual things as truly as the corporal eye doth corporal things”. A similar doctrine concerning the “spiritual Light” was propounded by that great saint of the Twentieth Century, Aiden Wilson Tozer.</span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>Now, there are some Christians who object to this doctrine, regarding it as unbiblical. True, it is nowhere spelled out in detail in the Scriptures, but come to that, neither is the doctrine of the Trinity, nor activities such as holding quiet times or saying grace before meals! Nevertheless, there is evidence that it was believed in Apostolic times. Timothy Keller, in his book <i>Prayer:Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God</i>, points to St. Paul’s prayer to the Ephesians that “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” (Ephesians 1:18). The “heart” in this context is, Keller reminds us, “the control centre of the entire self”. To have the “eyes of the heart enlightened” with a particular truth is, he states, “to have [that truth] penetrate and grip us so deeply that it changes the whole person”. The “eyes of the heart” referred t by Paul seems to be the same as the “spiritual Light” of Rous and Tozer. We might re-word what Rous said by calling the reason the “eyes of the head (or mind)” and the “divine and spiritual Light” the “eyes of the heart”. The former enables facts about the natural world (and even some spiritual <i>facts</i>) to be discerned, but the latter brings a deeper and more experiential enlightenment and as such was deemed superior to reason by Rous.</span></span></p>
<p align=”left”><span style=”font-family: Times New Roman, serif;”><span style=”font-size: medium;”>It is through this “spiritual Light” that we can know and experience the presence of Christ with us. It is my belief that if we spend time in silence gazing with the eyes of our hearts upon the Christ who is with us and what He has done for us out of His love, we will become more like Him. Although this “spiritual Light” is God’s gift, surely it becomes stronger as we exercise it more and more. Times of meditation on our own or, if and when possible, with a small group gathered in silence will, I believe, help us focus the eyes of our hearts on the Christ who died for us and who now abides with us, ever ready to transform us individually into His image and to transform the world itself into the Kingdom. I pray that the eyes of the hearts of everyone reading these words will be enlightened and that everyone reading these words will likewise pray for all Christians and for me as well, as we are all pilgrims on this fantastic and exciting journey.</span></span></p>