I changed the sub-title of this blog months ago now to ‘Life in the Kingdom’ without ever getting around to explaining that as far as I remember. So here’s the why: the Kingdom of God isn’t something coming to us, it’s something in us now. And we have the job of building it.
The quick rundown goes like this – God creates the world and man and hands dominion over the world to man. This was man’s inheritance, to be handed from generation to generation. Adam disobeyed God, gave up his inheritance and handed dominion of the world over to Satan. The crap hits the fan for a few thousand years. When Satan tempts Jesus in the desert, he offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world (which were Satan’s to give because of Adam) if he only bows down and worships Satan. Jesus of course has a better idea. In redeeming Adam’s and Israel’s actions (in all the temptations of Christ there is a mirrored failure of Adam and Israel to follow God’s ways), in living a sinless life and taking on the world’s sin as the perfect sacrifice, to pay for it instead of us, Christ then marched into the halls of hell itself, threw Satan down and crushed that serpent’s head beneath His foot – stomped it’s head so hard He bruised His own heal. Christ took back the inheritance Adam foolishly gave over to Satan by crushing the headship Satan had over the world and over people that would choose to be freed. Christ, as the last Adam, is now the rightful heir to the kingdoms of the world. And we, as co-heirs with Christ, have that as our inheritance too. Just like Israel was supposed to enter the promised land and occupy it, we are to move forward into the darkness and bring the kingdom of God with us, setting the captives free as we go, building the Kingdom one living stone at a time. Like Israel entering the promised land, there are large obstacles in our way that God has promised victory over. But if we in fear or complacency shy away from that task and don’t move INTO the promised land, others will continue to occupy what has been promised to us, God’s people, leaving no need for God to remove those obstacles. It won’t be done without us taking responsibility and action.
I want to live a life where I walk into the dark places, the messy places of life where Christians ‘don’t belong,’ and bring God’s kingdom with me. I want to take back the inheritance that rightfully belongs to Christ, who dwells within me and therefore shares that inheritance with me. 
This is what kingdom living means, and it’s what I’ve been trying to do with my life. Do I know the full extent of what those words mean? Am I always successful at living out what I DO know of it? Not even close. But I know it’s right, the way many of the disciples had no idea what they were getting into by saying yes to Jesus when He said come follow Him and did it anyway. As I learned more and more of what this looked like on the World Race last year, I wanted this lifestyle – a life lived IN the Kingdom, taking back what was given away and not just waiting for God’s Kingdom to appear.
The staff, coaches, and even some of our foreign hosts on the World Race all shared this vision. They passionately desire to see a generation rise up with this understanding of their role in God’s kingdom, knowing the responsibilities they have as Christians and what their place in God’s Kingdom is. They want to see this generation reaching out to itself and stepping forth in who God made them to be, and they do an amazing job of empowering people in their spiritual gifts and living out their faith fully alive. In short, working with them rocks. And in September there is an opportunity to work directly with them that I want to take advantage of. Three world race squads will all be in Eastern Europe at the same time, and so AIM is pulling them all together in Romania for one big teaching, worshiping, counseling, imparting, and training time. They’ve invited former racers to come and help with it too, leading, counseling, speaking, praying, and whatever else God has for us. I am hoping to join them there. Afterwards, since I can’t fly all the way to Europe for only 5 days, I hope to do some of my favorite type of ministry – hostel ministry – while seeing Eastern Europe for a month or so, since I’ve never been. So that’s what’s next, once I finish up here in a mere 2 weeks and fly home.
