Rescued into a Kingdom of Love

We have through the death and resurrection of Christ been saved from the kingdom of darkness and as Paul describes it been ‘brought into the Kingdom of the Son he loves’ (Colossians 1:13 NIV). This Kingdom is one of love…not just love in itself, but love between the Father and the Son, we are surprisingly included into such a community of love, a heavenly relationship that for us has been gained through the sacrifice of Christ and not through what we can offer to the conversation – the world chooses by what is on offer, something new or different, clever or sophisticated. But the Heavenly Father desires us to know the community of His love even though we are sinners; despite the fact that our hearts are hard and often cold to the moving of His Holy Spirit.
This Kingdom is God’s; the power of the Kingdom is the wonderful power of the life giving love of God, a sacrificial love of which the death of Christ is the example. Life in the Kingdom for us as believers of Jesus can be no different, bringing to our experience the love of God personally; love between the saints which will be as sacrificially based as love to those who do not yet know Christ. Often many people would rather the power of Christ could be just used, and turned on when they want or kept for a rainy day when the world has nothing to offer them, but because the Kingdom is based in relationship this is impossible. God’s life is not a method or denominational rule, it isn’t found in how you pray or how much and how often you give your money or fast, it is rooted in personal relationship with Jesus by the Holy Spirit. This is not an A, B, C gospel, rather Jesus is the A to Z, He is complete. So often we hear that we need to do this or that, but rather we should seek the presence of Jesus and pray to the Father.
The power of God is rooted in His LOVE. Can we know the power of God in our lives if we don’t want love? No, of course not – our Christianity will not be an expression of the Father’s Kingdom. There is a lot which has the name of Christianity, but fails to fit into the description of the Kingdom of love. A Kingdom that deals with the truth of sin by the grace given by the offering of Jesus’ death on the cross, this love is real and effective, public and shameless. Do we know such love?
Matthew Armstrong
Blantyre, November 2009.