Pressing into the kingdom of God

 

A number of years ago I came across something that said that Mennonites weigh everything in their lives against one goal…getting to heaven. It said they often weigh the merit of anything they encounter by asking themselves ‘will this get me closer to heaven’, if the answer is yes, they allow that thing into their lives. If the answer is no, they remove that thing from their lives.

On the surface that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. It is a way of weighing the good and the bad in our lives. A way of measuring what we allow into our lives and what we don’t. It gives a standard to measure all things with.

I can even imagine a picture of a long road, in my mind I see a dirt road, lined with trees, as far down that road as I can see, there is nothing but road and trees. The road curves upward, on a hill, and just disappears. There is no more road. But where there was road now there is clouds, sky. It’s one of those roads that when you top the hill you see the rest of the road but for a time all you see is a road that runs straight into the sky. I love to see those roads because they give the illusion of driving into heaven.

It’s an illusion, of course, we can never drive to heaven and those clouds and sky that we see aren’t heaven anyway, but it is a peaceful sort of simple enjoyment. For a time, there is a highway to heaven. Or so it seems.

When I think of the Mennonites supposedly measuring everything against ‘will this get me closer to heaven’, I think of that ‘highway to heaven’. I imagine a one way road with heaven as the destination and a lone person walking the road. Trees line either side, so thick, maybe filled with thorn bushes, that there is no way to walk among them.

Each step down that road is made through an encounter with something or someone. If it is profitable for reaching heaven, take one step forward, if, on the other hand, it is something bad, take one step back. One by one, encounter by encounter, the lone person either makes their way closer to heaven or further away. They travel that road based on the things they allow into their lives.

The trouble with that idea, and the picture it creates, is that it is a way of working your way to heaven. And Scripture tells us that we can never work our way to heaven. The other problem with that idea is that if we disregard something…especially someone…because they can’t ‘get us closer to heaven’, we disregard something…someone…that was brought into our lives for a reason.

A friend of my husband’s recently told me that my husband needs do nothing to point people to Christ but be himself. This man said that my husband is the ultimate witness for Christ by simply living his life…because my husband lives for Christ. And this man was right. He said that no one who spends any time around my husband can walk away unaffected.

If my husband weighed those he allows into his life by whether or not they would ‘get’ him closer to heaven…how many people might miss out on the testimony for Christ that my husband may well be to them?

I have recently been studying the book of Matthew. I have read this book many times but this time I have worked through it slowly, so slowly in fact that I have already been studying it for two weeks and haven’t yet worked my way to the end of it. By taking Matthew so slowly I have picked up on many things that I never took the time to notice before. Little details. Big details. They stand out so much more when we crawl through the text instead of run through it. And even when we read it slowly, we are moving at a jog. How much more does the snail, at his fastest pace, notice about his environment than the cheetah, at his fastest pace, notice about his?

When I was in school I took so many reading classes, because they were my favorite classes, that I was taught much about reading. One of the things I learned well was the ability to read through a book at a quick pace. That is a good thing…most of the time. I have read 300-400 page books in a single day. When reading fiction that is fine, when reading Scripture…it’s a bad thing. I have to make myself slow down as I read and all too soon find myself reading quickly again.

I run through Scripture like a cheetah at full pace, when I need to go through it like a snail at his slowest pace.

So I made myself slow down, really slow down, and work through Scripture. Sentence by sentence. Sometimes word by word. Slowly.

And I’ve noticed much that I never saw before.

The book of Matthew opens with the genealogy of Jesus. Let me just go ahead and say…I’m not a person that appreciates genealogy in Scripture. It has a place, serves a purpose, but I don’t properly appreciate it. For me, those places where genealogy comes up…are difficult and I find myself skimming through them to get to what comes next. Not this time. This time I took them word by word, literally. I took note of each name, noticed the spellings.

I worked through those names when my inclination was to hurry through them and get to something more interesting. But I pressed through them. Pressed into them. I never once allowed myself the indulgence of skimming or skipping them.

Did I learn anything? I don’t know. Perseverance maybe. But I stuck with it until I had worked through the family history of Christ. I even looked up family trees of Christ and thought of how it might be interesting to take the Scripture of Jesus’ genealogy and a blank family chart and fill it in, just to connect the names with Christ a bit easier. I have not yet done that. I may never do it. But I do think it would be an interesting thing to do.

After the genealogy the book of Matthew takes us to the birth of Christ. Crawling through the Scriptures instead of running through them gave me time to think of what it was like for Mary. How she may have felt at the task assigned to her.

It gave me time to think of other things too, so many things. But it isn’t my intention to work through Matthew in this writing, in fact the book of Matthew really has little to do with what I want to say. Beyond the fact that it holds a few Scripture verses I wish to share Matthew and my study of it are only examples that have come to me as I write this.

And so I will skip ahead in the book of Matthew…skip to the part that my thoughts have snagged onto today. It is to chapter 3 that I wish to look. Chapter three starts with John the Baptist. At that point he is preaching. The first thing we see him saying is…Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Can you imagine what that must have meant in that day? What people must have thought and felt at being told the kingdom of heaven is at hand…is now.

I grew up in ‘church’ buildings. I had a ‘Christian’ upbringing. I went to ‘church’. I said my prayers. I knew who Jesus was and that He died on the cross. And yet…I clearly remember the day when I understood that there was so much more to Christ than what I had been taught. Until that day I had seen the Old Testament as disconnected ‘stories’. I didn’t know why we had them, had even been told and taught that those in the Old Testament had no chance of going to heaven because Jesus equaled salvation and Jesus hadn’t lived yet in the Old Testament.

How wrong that teaching was. Revelation tells us that Christ was slain from creation. Those in the Old Testament gained salvation through their faith in the Messiah that was to come, by the Lord’s will. Just as those since the New Testament gain salvation through their faith in Christ by the Lord’s will.

But here…in Matthew…almost at the very beginning of the book we see John the Baptist preaching that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is here. It has come. He is preparing the way. Softening the people up, you might say, for Christ.

John was paving the road, laying a foundation, planting seeds. He was the one that came before Christ to prepare the way for Christ. And how does he do it? He tells people to ‘repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’. He doesn’t put on great shows, doesn’t tell people to spend two minutes saying a prayer that is brought on by emotion and circumstances around them. He tells them…repent.

Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

That was the same thing that Christ said.

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 4:17

And it was what the disciples were told to preach.

And, as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 10:7

Christ brought the kingdom of heaven but John the Baptist had the job of preparing the way. Christ was the road that disappeared into the clouds and sky. He was also the clouds and the sky. He is the way and He is the destination…or the purpose for the destination. But John the Baptist was to prepare the way. He was to expose it. He had the job of moving all the rocks that blocked the road.

John the Baptist softened them up, introducing them to the road. Christ showed them the way down that road.

I think often of the relative I have that says I make being a Christian harder than it has to be. How this relative sees the way I live my life, not that I chose to live a certain way, I simply can’t live any other way, but this relative sees my life as choices I make that turns my life and therefore ‘being a Christian’ into something much ‘harder than it has to be’.

I have never discussed this with this relative. I only know this person feels this way because of what others have told me. But for anyone that sees any form of Christianity as hard I would ask one question…do you think it was easy for Christ?

And still…I don’t make being a Christian harder than it has to be, I only do what makes it where I can live in this world. This relative thinks that my dislike of movies and music and many other things of this world make ‘being a Christian harder than it has to be’ but for me, it is the only way I can live.

It isn’t hard for me to live this way. It’s easier. Because so much of what’s in the world literally hurts me when I encounter it. It is a spiritual hurt that goes deep and makes me shy away from it in much the same way we, as people, tend to yank our hand away from fire. We feel the heat long before we touch the flame and yank away. I feel the hurt with each contact of the sin filled things of this world and my soul cringes, yanks back, to avoid that which causes me spiritual hurt.

If I had a mental image of what that would look like…maybe I would see it as that road…the one with the sky, clouds, heaven, at the end. When I get to close to the thorn wrapped trees it hurts and so I jump back onto the road. The road to me is safety, it is security, it is peace. But the trees hurt. The road is Christ. The trees and the thorns are the world.

I don’t literally see my life that way but if I was looking for an image…maybe that would be it. Or maybe instead of trees, I would line the road with flames. So the heat would be felt long before I stepped into the flames. That is the image…one I don’t really hold…of what I imagine it might look like…this making being a Christian harder than it has to be. Those that see ‘Christianity’ as easy, that see nothing wrong with watching evil movies and listening to sin filled music are playing in the flames.

That is a place where I can’t play.

My soul won’t let me play there. And I have no desire to play there. I find joy, peace, happiness, contentment, on the road, far from the flames.

A few months ago someone told my husband that he should take me somewhere for a good time, a time spent together. It was a good idea. I would love to go somewhere with my husband, just he and I, to spend time together. But, at that time, when the suggestion was made, my husband and I ran through idea after idea of what we wanted to do…and we came up with…

Nothing.

We were both perfectly happy with being home together.

I am perfectly happy with staying on the road and far from the flames that make my spirit hurt. But it’s on this road…even if it is only a mental image that comes to mind at this moment and isn’t something I generally think of…that I picture. And it’s that road that has caused to me take this rather long route of explanation to get to as I write this.

Again, I think of the Mennonites that supposedly weigh everything against whether or not it will get them closer to heaven. I have met several Mennonites. During those meetings I was able to draw a conclusion that would seem to support that idea. When I met Mennonites while I was wearing a skirt, they were very friendly, standing and talking with me, telling me of things they liked and disliked, interacting with my entire family. But on the meetings where I was in shorts or pants they were very distant, speaking to me only when they had to and then keeping their conversation to only what absolutely had to be said.

It was enlightening to see the difference in the way they interacted with me based off what I was wearing.

I have no idea if it had anything to do with the belief that they supposedly hold about keeping that which will get them closer to heaven and avoiding that which won’t. But if they do indeed hold that belief then…in shorts or pants I threatened their entrance to heaven but in a skirt I didn’t.

That, whether or not the Mennonites believe that way, is a form or working for salvation, one that does no one any good. Scripture tells…

…Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. Matthew 21:31 ESV

I highly doubt prostitutes were dressed in the most modest clothes of their time, no matter what time they lived in.

But I see something else in their thought process. It is working their way to heaven, yes, and it does them no good. The Lord will either save them or He won’t. But…in a very earthly sort of human way I can see something in that concept. If heaven is the goal…and it is…then weighing all against whether or not it is profitable for heaven has some merit…just not merit of salvation.

 Scripture tells us…

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Colossians 3:2 NIV

In a way…weighing things for their profit of heaven is keeping that verse. Not that I’m in any way suggesting that anyone do that. Someone once told me that living out our faith means showing our faith to others in what we do. That we must work to show that faith. I don’t believe that. I believe that our faith, if genuine, will show simply because it is who we are.

Scripture tells us to look to the things ‘of above’. We are also told to take up our cross and follow Christ (Matthew 16:24).  Elsewhere we are told to deny self. We are even told that to be first we must be last.

We must persevere till the end. I recently wrote a post on Matthew 3:11. In it I wrote of the baptism by fire that Christ gives to those that are His. This fire baptism…or spirit baptism…places Christ in us. He is the light…the fire…that burns within us. Without him overtaking us…taking us captive to Him…overruling our flesh and filling us with His Spirit…we could never persevere till the end…till heaven.

We would fail so many times, would turn away and stay turned away. But because Christ lives in those that are His they persevere until the very end. They press on. They keep going. They stay the course.

They press into the kingdom of heaven.

They desire Christ above all else. They want the peace and joy found on the dirt road. They want the glory of heaven that awaits at the end of that road. And they want it not because they have decided to desire it above all else but because they have been taken captive and held captive by Christ. They have no choice but to desire Christ so much that they forsake all for His sake.

They press into the kingdom not because they chose to do so but because they were dragged onto the road (John 6:44) and once there, once they tasted the joy and peace found there, they have no desire to play in the fire. Their desire becomes the peace and joy of Christ and they strive for that, not because they wanted it when they were dragged into that peace but because they have tasted it and now have no choice but to want that peace and joy so much that it is an ache within them.

I literally ache to know more of Scripture. It is a desire deep within me and the more I know…the more I need to know.

I have been told that the Bible is boring. It is so far beyond boring for me that there is no comparison. It is, for lack of a better word, a very magical thing. It holds such amazing things that there truly is no way to describe what lives within the pages of the Bible.

I did not choose to have this fascination with Scripture, and in fact could not have chosen it because it is a direct contrast to all that is human nature. But I am beyond fascinated. And so, I press into Scripture, not because I chose to but because I can’t not do it.

And I walk the dirt road not because I chose to but because I was dragged onto it and now know the joy and peace found there and I feel the flames of the fire that line the road. I don’t have to stray very far to either side of the road before I feel the heat and run back to the safety, to the joy and peace, of the middle of the road.

I desire to be there, in the peace of Christ. I desire the kingdom of God. Not because I went looking for it, not because I chose it, but because I was dragged into it. And once there I have no choice but to stay there. I can’t leave the road. I am held captive here, on the road, by the flames that burn long before I step into them. And yet…though I am a captive…I desire…I long…I ache…to be here.

I recently received a Christian magazine in the mail. It had an article on giving to God and told how God desires a cheerful giver and that we should give not out of abundance but should give to the degree that it costs us something. That same article went on to suggest that ‘you’ should give to the magazine. But that isn’t what I want to focus on here. It’s the part where it said we should give until it costs us something.

They were speaking of finances. Of giving until you feel the loss of the money you give. But I think too of how my life was ‘given’ to Christ. I didn’t choose to give it. And in reality I lost it…my life was taken by Christ. I didn’t make things harder because I chose to. My life was overtaken by the Lord and I can’t do anything but what I’m doing.

I was recently told that I am obsessed with the Bible. That isn’t true. It’s not possible to be obsessed with the Bible. If we spent every hour of every day reading and studying the Bible it would never be enough. But those that haven’t been dragged into Christ don’t realize that. They can’t understand that it isn’t a choice made. I can’t just stop hurting when I encounter those evil movies. I can’t sit before a television screen and watch evil played out as if it’s good. I can’t applaud sin. When I get that close to the evil and sin, I feel the sting of the fire and I jump back to safety.

And so whether I want to or not…I press on…I press into the kingdom of God because the things of the earth cause me to lose that peace and joy that I never asked for but got anyway.

A couple of years ago I heard a preacher say that we should ‘count the cost’. I don’t remember anything else about that sermon but I remember him saying we should ‘count the cost’. Luke 14:28 speaks of counting the cost but I don’t know if that was a part of that particular sermon or not.  I think to of something I heard a long time ago…I don’t even know where I heard it…’it will cost you everything.’

Christ cost me everything. He took all that I was and made me into what He wanted me to be. In return He gave me more than I could have ever imagined. But still…it cost me everything.

It is that everything…the cost and the gaining…that I think of as I think of pressing into the kingdom of God.

When the Titanic sank, it was completely unexpected. It shocked the world. Everyone had been told that the Titanic was unsinkable and they had believed it. Then…it sank. The sinking of an ‘unsinkable’ ship would have been shocking enough but the death toll was tragic. It shook the world and is still very much spoken of today. Children are fascinated by it when they hear of it. Scientists try and figure out exactly what happened and why. They know it was an ice berg but they continue to ask why? Why did it happen? What exactly happened? How could it have happened? They visit the wreckage. Make models of the ship and recreate the accident. They study every tiny detail.

No one that got onto that ship counted the cost that would be paid. They all believed the ship could not sink and therefore they boarded it believing that nothing bad could happen. And it cost them everything. For some…it cost their very lives. Yes, it was their time to go and through Scripture we know that that ship was the method the Lord used to end their days on earth, but still, in the earthly sense, that ship cost their lives. For those that survive…they were never the same again. They may have boarded that ship as John Doe but they became…a Titanic survivor. The experience of that ship, being on it, surviving it’s sinking, would have stayed with them forever. It would have become a part of who they were.

They did not choose to become part of a shipwreck that will probably live in history forever. They were a victim of it. They pressed on through the sinking of the ship. The Lord used the sinking of that ship for His purposes. It was a part of the plan He had for mankind.

But for those that survived…they were never the same. Human nature tells us that some of them would have relived that night in their minds over and over. Others would have suffered from nightmares. Some may have even developed post-traumatic stress disorder because of their experiences that night. Many of the women that survived became widows. Children were lost. Parents died. It was tragedy of huge proportions.

And it left those that survived changed forever.

They say the bombing of the twin towers changed our nation. And it did. People still talk of where they were when they found out. Those who lost loved ones still mourn. Laws were changed as a result. And a holiday was declared.

Our country changed because of one event.

Paul was changed because of a single event. An event so profound that he went from the hunter to the hunted. He jumped the fence and joined the ‘enemy.’

I was recently told someone’s testimony of their conversion. And it was a conversation. This person went to bed disdainful of God and woke up seeking Him. Much like Paul. This person with no desire to do so was dragged across the fence into what they hadn’t even believed in the day before.

This person was changed forever. Now they seek Christ. Seek salvation. Long for it. Desire it.

Press into the kingdom of God.

Because they had no choice but to walk the dirt road.

This isn’t the testimony one hears in ‘church’ buildings. There was nothing in that story of how that person ‘chose’ to believe, or how they ‘invited Jesus into their hearts’. This person didn’t need to choose and they didn’t need to invite Christ anywhere. They were taken captive and as a result all those that knew this person witnessed the change in them.

This was not the emotion based ‘conversion’ of an emotional moment nor is it a reaction based ‘decision’ for Christ. It was a dragging away from what this person believed and a changing to Christ. Not because they wanted it, not because they chose it, but because Christ wanted it.

And now this person strives for the kingdom. They press into the kingdom. Their heart aches and hurts for past mistakes and for the peace and salvation of Christ.

This is Christianity.

Not because this person makes it harder, but because they have no choice. Not because they wanted it and therefore chose it, but because they had no choice.

A new year often brings ‘New years resolutions.’ Some actually write out lists of what they hope to accomplish during the new year. Most of those lists are forgotten or discarded not long after they’re made.

‘Christians’ often make lists of what they intend to do. They decide they’re going to read their Bible more, or go to ‘church’ every week, or serve on some team, or pray more, or…whatever. They choose what they want to do more of and they resolve to do it. And all too often they fail to do them.

Some even make resolutions of living a certain way so that they can attain salvation. A sort of ‘if I do this, God will do that’ situation. Or worse, an ‘if I do this, God will owe me that.’ And they live their lives in such a way that they are working toward whatever it is that God owes them. Much the way the Mennonites supposedly weigh everything in their lives against their ability to ‘get’ to heaven.

When a person is working their way to salvation…no matter how they are doing it…they are fulfilling man’s ideas of what will get them there, a situation that Scripture tells us will never gain them salvation. Despite the clear teachings of Scripture many still try and work their way into Salvation…or into ‘God’s graces’…or into being ‘right with God.’ Many times in that working they make ‘resolutions’ whether in lists, intentions, or just in thought. And all too often those ‘resolutions’ fall by the wayside. They are unable to keep any ‘resolution’ because they are choices made in the mind, no matter how much the heart might want to do what the mind decides, anything that originates in the mind often fails.

Minds make decisions and hearts might like the idea so they get on board for a while. But the problem is that the heart rarely stays involved for long. We cannot force our hearts to truly love and desire something and the sad thing is, where Christ is concerned, all too often it is the mind that wants it and not the heart.

When true conversion takes place, though, it is an entirely different matter. It is not a decision of the mind but a changing of the heart. It isn’t human will that causes it but Christ that replaces the heart of stone within and fills that place with a heart of flesh. This new heart then yearns for Christ and the ways of Christ in a way that our human minds and hearts could never do.

We then press into the kingdom of God much the way a child that is cold presses as close as they can get to a source of heat. They seek that heat because they must have it. It fills them and warms them and they desire to get as close to it as they can.

A true Christian presses into Christ as if they were freezing and Christ is the only heat source available. Life may draw us away for a time but always we come back to Him, not because we chose to come back to Him but because He draws us back. Just as a child that is cold may, after warming themselves, go back out to play in the snow, only to come back to the warmth when they get too cold.

A truly converted person presses into the kingdom of God not because we choose to do so but because we are drawn to it in such a way that we cannot do anything but press into it. Our hearts, our very souls, have been taken captive by Christ and it is the Spirit of Him, living in us, that fills us to the point that we are drawn ever closer to His kingdom. We press into it because we are being pressed into it.

In fact we are pressed into it to the point that we desire nothing more than we do to be in the Lord’s kingdom. The fire that burns within us gives those that are truly converted such a perseverance that they can do nothing but stay the course and press ever closer to Christ. In our flesh we do not have the ability to stay the course. On our own we would stray away like the ‘Christian’ that makes resolutions to do ‘this’ or ‘that’ only to find themselves doing nothing of the sort just a short time later. The ‘Christian’ that makes those resolutions makes them from the mind, assuming the heart will stay the course but hearts are fickle and often turn to something else. That is the human heart.

But once Christ takes us captive we have no choice but to stay the course. He fills us with His Spirit so that we are drawn ever closer to Him. We no longer need resolutions because once converted our walk with Christ is no longer about what we want…it becomes what we need.

If a truly converted Christian never picked up a Bible their minds and hearts would spend much time in the things of Christ even without His Word. We simply can do nothing else.

The ‘Christian’ that hasn’t been truly converted may desire to keep the resolutions they made, they may earnestly want to do so, may work hard to do what they said they would, but sooner or later their hearts will be drawn to the things that they truly love and they will leave behind all the ‘I will do this’ resolutions they fully intended to keep. They will leave them behind not because they want to but because they will simply look up one day and realize that they have strayed from all their well-intended resolutions. Their hearts will have led them to what they truly love.

But the truly converted Christian has a different experience. They tend to look around and see themselves growing ever closer to Christ through no intention on their own. They are drawn ever closer to Christ, like a moth to a flame. We simply can’t not look toward Him.

We are His captives and He presses us ever closer to Him.