Question of the Week: How do I Enter the Kingdom of God?

by Anne Lang Bundy

Image source: myroyalwedding.wordpress.com

What is the Kingdom of God, how do I get there, and how do I know it when I see it?
Russell Holloway, blog host

Last week described what God's kingdom is. This week will address how to enter His eternal kingdom—now.

Jesus provides an answer that is both specific and an apparent mystery.

"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again ... unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
~ John 3:3-6 (NKJV)

To be born again is to become a new creation, born by repentance into God's Holy Spirit as a place for Him to reside. God separates Himself from evil. Therefore we must repent of sin and be cleansed of sin by confessing Jesus as our risen-from-the-dead Lord—our Sovereign—so that He also becomes our Savior from sin.

God's will for His anointed kings is that they do battle to protect their people. King David is the paradigm for King Jesus. David began to save his people after he was anointed king, long before he received the throne. The most visible foe of Israel was Goliath, whose head David took, just as Jesus came to crush the head of Satan. King David went on to deliver Israel from the Philistines and all other enemies, just as King Jesus goes on to deliver us from all sin wherever He is invited to reign.

When we repent of sin and make Jesus our Lord, water baptism is the outward expression of having made this spiritual transaction with God. As we then yield to the Holy Spirit, He enters us and reproduces the Person of Jesus in us.

This might be seen in Jesus' birth, in the invitation Mary accepted. (See Luke 1:35.) When the Holy Spirit comes upon us, He creates a new life in us—the life of Christ—which grows and is eventually manifest to the world. We are then able to enter the kingdom of God because we belong to it. We are no longer citizens of Earth but of Heaven. We are adopted as sons and daughters of the Father Who is King.

Worldly subjects of our king are ruled by law. The heirs of God's kingdom, to whom it belongs, receive grace and are not subject to law. However, the King holds His own children to a higher standard than law, because we represent Him, His name, and the kingdom.

He is most jealous about the integrity of His Son's bride, whom we are.

More on that next week, in describing how we know the kingdom when we see it.

: : :

What questions do you have about Christianity or the Bible? You're invited to leave them in the comments below (anonymous questions welcome), or email buildingHisbody [plus] @ gmail.com.

© 2011 Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.

Question of the Week: Religion or Spirituality?

by Anne Lang Bundy

What is the difference between religion and spirituality?
~ Renatta, Michigan


Good question! Especially because when being religious is compared to having relationship with God, religion is worthless. But when placed next to spirituality, religion is absolutely necessary.

Worthless religion is religion narrowly defined by law or doctrine. It puts emphasis on good works or obedience to law to make a person righteous. People who pride themselves on how well their actions conform to the standards of their religion—especially when they look down on those who they feel do not conform—are also called pharisaical, after the Pharisees of Jesus' time.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls people everywhere to give up any attempt at being made righteous by any religion. Every person is guilty of sin and condemned to eternal death. The payment required for sin is death, not good works. (A death row inmate cannot compensate for his crime with community service.) As the only Man to never sin, Jesus is the only Person Who did not need to pay the death penalty for Himself. He was therefore able to pay the death penalty for us, and He did so by dying on the cross. (He stepped into our place before the Executioner.)

The blood of Jesus Christ is the only acceptable compensation for our sin, no matter how much good we do.

If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified [made righteous], and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
~ Romans 10:9-10 (NIV)

To believe God raised Jesus is to believe in His death. To declare Jesus as Lord is to be purchased with His blood and belong to Him, to then be made righteous and repent of the sin which once condemned us, and to receive His Holy Spirit. Salvation includes the whole package.

Once saved, good works can't make us more righteous, and failure to do good works won't make us less righteous. Religion is no longer the law which condemns us, but the truth which defines our righteousness and faith.

Spirituality is uniting our will to the Holy Spirit of God so He might work into our lives His fruit: love, joy, peace, patient longsuffering, active and merciful kindness, goodness (godliness), faith-filled faithfulness, meek and humble gentleness, and temperate self-control. Again, it is an entire package, not pick and choose. Spirituality includes expressing such fruit with good works.

For those who belong to Jesus, religion might be called the foundation and framing, and spirituality the roof, floor and walls. The former is necessary for support, but will soon prove of little purpose unless covered with the latter. And the latter doesn't hold up well without the support of the former.

© 2010 Anne Lang Bundy
Image source: cha-amproperty.com

Question of the Week: What Exactly is the Gospel?

by Anne Lang Bundy

"The recognition of sin
is the beginning of salvation."
~ Martin Luther

"What exactly is the Gospel? I hear that term all the time."
~ Anonymous

The word "gospel" means "good news." The Gospel is the best news ever shared.

The Gospel's good news comes with bad news. The devil doesn't want you to believe either one.

The Gospel is this: God sent His Son Jesus to the earth to die for our sins. His death may be credited to us so that we ourselves need not pay the death penalty for sin. We obtain that credit as righteousness, through our faith in Jesus Christ, by God's grace as His gift.

The bad news is that the Gospel's value to a person diminishes in proportion to how lightly one looks at sin. Here are three common views.

1) If I believe I am not quite bad enough for God to actually send me to Hell, I will neither fear God nor understand my genuine need of a Savior. Grace and Heaven will be considered an entitlement rather than a gift. I will believe I posess salvation because of my intellectual agreement or association with religion. My life will be lived for myself rather than for God. If I claim to be a Christian, my failure to bring God glory will defame His name.

The Bible says such belief, without fear of God and Hell, is less than a demon’s:

You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!
~ James 2:19 (NKJV)

2) If I understand that I am a sinner who needs salvation to avoid Hell, I'll accept God's gift of salvation. But if I think I'm not all that bad a sinner—that my sin is simply human nature—then I'll be inclined to see salvation as something collectively bestowed upon a portion of deserving humanity. I'll likely retain the self-righteous pride which looks down on the “real” sinners, struggles to extend forgiveness, and is selective with love.

I cannot love God until I get past such pride:

If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
~ 1 John 4:20 (NKJV)

3) If I believe Almighty God created me, laid down commandments which I've violated, and is offended by my sin; if I see my sin as a filthy stench which covers me and makes me offensive to a good God; and if I understand that Holy God provided the precious blood of His Son to clean away the filth of my evil because of His great love for me—then I will consider the Gospel the greatest of all good news, gratefully bow the knee before God and humbly accept His Gift, and love my Lord with all my heart forever:

"Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little."
~ Luke 7:47 (NKJV)

Here are some lies the devil does want you to believe:
• Your sin is so bad that you'll never be worthy of God's grace or love.
• If you've been saved from sin's death penalty it doesn't matter if you sin.
• Once you make Jesus Lord of your life, your problems are over.
• Problems in life indicate God's condemnation for your sin.
• If you love others then you're loving God and don't need to love Him first.

Further questions about the Gospel (or about Christianity / the Bible) are welcome.

© 2010 Anne Lang Bundy
Image from the movie Passion of the Christ © 2004

Alt-Mariendorf

Albert Einstein is reported to have said that in the form of a mathematical equation all the human brainpower combined is insufficient to comprehend the universe.

Because we cannot disprove what we cannot fully comprehend, we have to leave open the possibility of God’s existence.

The post-modern, perhaps post Christian, society we live in today, argues that truth is relative. But in reality, a believer cannot decide God into existence any more than a non-believer can decide God out of existence.

God exists, or does not exist, despite what we choose to believe. Relativism when it comes to God is . . . unscientific.

+++

On a late weekday morning several years ago, I was walking down the street in Berlin on my way to the city center. Just a few hundred feet from the subway entrance Alt-Mariendorf the Holy Spirit descended on me.

I was not following God at the time, but it felt like my soul was wrapped in love. It was pure, beautiful, and absolute knowledge of God’s existence.

My life was not in crisis, and I was otherwise physically healthy.

I did not then and do not now belong to a Pentecostal or charismatic church where things like this are reported to happen.

The entire experience lasted no longer than a few minutes and ended as quickly as it had begun.

During those moments the Holy Spirit conveyed to me two things.

He said that in the future I would return to God and He had something He wanted me to do.

He also said that someday my faith would be severley tested and that the current experience was a gift, something I could look back on during moments of profound doubt . . . and know God exists.

+++

Two-thousand-and-nine years ago, plus or minus six years, depending on whose calendar you use, God clothed himself in flesh and entered our world. We celebrate that event today as Christmas.

He did it because He loves you and me more dearly than any parent could love his or her own child.

Every emotion you have ever experienced . . . love, rejection, joy, loneliness . . . He experienced as a human, too.

If the purpose of what I experienced fifteen years ago on the street in Berlin is to tell you one thing, it is this: God loves you. The world will not always exist in its current form. Call out to God. He wants to be in a relationship with you.

We are all in need of salvation.

God is real. His love for you is real...