God seems to be speaking to me when reading his word lately about how I can express the kingdom to not just my fellow Cantabrian, but to the nations. I was reading Isaiah the other day, Chpt 60, I always struggle with how much I should 'claim' verses for myself. It's all very nice taking the 'nice' verses as God speaking a specific word to me, but I'm not so keen when it comes the 'not so nice' ones.
This Chapter, especially the first few verses, really stood out when I read them: "Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For the darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn."
Nations for will be drawn to God through Gods glory shinning out from me! What a privilege, a responsibility we have to those around us. God chooses a people to express his glory , his good news to the world. He chose Israel but they turned their backs on God and instead of drawing the nations to honour him, they dishonoured the name of God. Now God has chosen another people to represent his name among the nations, those whom he has redeemed through Jesus.
What shape does this light that shines for the nations look like; chapter 61 gives us a glimpse. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour ..."
But what I find even more incredible is that this is not some 'way out there' promise; it is brought right next to us when we read Luke 4:18 and then verse 21. "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." "The kingdom of heaven is near". Jesus is The Good News, and he lived in the "power of the Holy Spirit", he lived and preached a message that should be 'violent', that should rip open the complacency of our comfortable established lives. He came down from Heaven to enter into the messy, broken world and to establish a kingdom that we are part off.
Today I listened to a friend talking; who is going through a rough time with his marriage and trying to make major employment decisions. A neighbour came into work this afternoon in real agony because his leg is very sore, he had had a bad day and we sat down with a coffee.
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