Now...
Now is the time to repent and be baptized. If you have anything against anyone, forgive them in your heart and actions. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. This moment is the perfect one to let Christ heal your wounds. Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to be free from addiction. Today is the day to be free from everything. Get over yourself. In this very moment Love Himself is here, be afraid of nothing. This is the hour of real, Spirit-empowered life change. Preach the Gospel to the poor, the rich, the disabled, to all creation. Humbly give your all to the God who is jealous of all that you give to another master and experience being lifted up by the very hand of the Father. The Kingdom of God is here. Heal the world in the name of Jesus Christ. Give generously of your finances, time, gifts, and who God has made you to advance the Kingdom of Jesus against everything that opposes it: unbelief, sin, shame, the world, the flesh, and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Nothing will prevail over a man or woman equipped with the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Love everyone deeply, tangibly. Move. Move. Move. What is the next step, struggle, or action in front of you? Take it, overcome it, and take the next. Fix your eyes on Jesus, who is the author and perfector of your life in Him, and run deeper into Him - all the while faithfully resting at peace in the presence of Christ's immeasurable Love.
Luke 18:15 The Little Children and Jesus
This little snippet of the life of Jesus Christ is extraordinarily beautiful and sometimes just as difficult. The disciples tell the mothers and babies to get away from Jesus assuming that Jesus doesn't want to deal with kids, Jesus is obviously above such things, he's grown up, he's too old and important to spend his valuable time with kids. The disciples push away, and Jesus calls out to the children, telling them to come, so now, in addition to mothers and their babies, he's got a bunch of other kids near him. Just picture him. He then teaches using the children, mildly rebuking the disciples by saying that the kingdom of God is just as much for kids as others. Then, he goes beyond this (it's the difficult part) and says that "anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."
This is convicting and often difficult for me to live by. I believe that there are many of us who simply don't want to enter the kingdom like a child. We'd rather enter with our heads held high like an adult. We don't want to be that helpless. We don't want to be that small. We don't want to be as inept, dependent, and undeserving as the babies in their mother's arms. Earning what God gives sounds a lot better than just receiving it. I'd love to receive the kingdom of God like a deserved knighthood, with God bestowing upon me what I have worked and fought incessantly to acquire. But it doesn't work that way. I cannot earn what God offers. It is far too marvelous. I have to come to him humbly accepting my own incapacity to deserve him or I will never enter into his kingdom. When I do this, letting go of my delusions of grandeur, I feel so free. I no longer have to stay away from God to become better. I don't have to be full of shame and anger toward myself for not living a life good enough to be in God's presence. He accepts me when I come to him as grateful, fully dependent, incapable, and desperate as a baby in his mother's arms. After trying over and over again to live like Christ on my own, I know that truly I am just like that baby. And it's so peaceful in God's arms.
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