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November 2007, Page 1.
Index of articles:
by subject,
by date.
In this issue:
(November 2007)
Kingdom season,
Romans 8,
Free for All tour,
Theistic Evolution.
The Kingdom and the King
“Dark November brings the fog -
should not do it to a dog!”
... wrote Flanders and Swann in their mickey-taking song about the British weather, where each month seems worse than the last. Mostly we know what they mean: the nights draw in, the cold bites, and we batten down the hatches.
The Church of England, by contrast, has introduced a “kingdom season” into its calendar. We start the month with “All Saints”, and finish it with “Christ the King” (the Sunday before Advent). It’s a month of gritty victory, when we think about the difference Jesus has made in our lives and how to live differently.
What’s God’s Kingdom? It’s the place where he rules, where things are done his way, and his will is followed - like Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer: “your kingdom come, your will be done.”
OK, where is this kingdom? It isn’t actually a place as such. You’re born in the British kingdom, but you have the option of whether to be in God’s kingdom. If you want you can become a citizen of it, and that’s called being born again. “Unless someone is born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God” said Jesus. (Actually he said we couldn’t even see God’s kingdom without being born again.)
What’s ‘born again’? It’s when you invite Jesus into your heart, and God’s Spirit mingles with your spirit to make a new creation.
But what actual difference does it make?
Well, that’s the key question for November. Are we “All Saints” only in name, or are we really different inside? There are quite a lot of people who think you can become a Christian by inviting Jesus into your life, and it will give you a rosy glow but it won’t actually make any difference to what you do. You can continue to be selfish, and you won’t find it any easier to love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.
But that’s completely wrong. “If anyone is in Christ, there‘s a new creation,” and “you must no longer live like the heathen do,” says St Paul. Because God’s Spirit enables you to be different. Before you invited Jesus in you were a slave to sin, but now you are free from that, and you have the choice and the power to be different.
In the Protestant Church we have emphasised that being a Christian starts with the free grace of God, which we can never earn or deserve. But maybe we’ve lost sight of the need for us to respond by living according to the dictates of God’s Holy Spirit. Let’s restore the balance.
John Hartley