KINGDOM

“…My Tipping Point…”

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Watch Ahead

As we take stock of life and take a look towards the future and being wise looking back over the events of days gone, for this is true wisdom when we can draw from our past and now to mold the future.  As we do this I am sure we all have different thoughts of what the future holds.  Even as we consider the past we would have different thoughts about what got us to this point.

We all get asked in the light of world events what does this mean?   I have to say some times I don’t know helps us Lord in the changes that are rushing towards us all.   Several years ago I picked up a book called “The Tipping Point”, I am told it has become rather a buzz statement for many, with many taking it up to sum up their feelings of now.    The notion is that everything comes to a point of balance, one that is ready to tip and throw its weight towards a certain direction.   Many things can tip the balance, it could be  a reasoned thought, an emotional response, or a circumstance that tips the balance and takes you over an edge.    In other words the statement we often used to hear of  “its got to break” has now moved into a roller coaster a movement, beginning a direction that seemingly has its own momentum.    So many people I talk to feel as if they are either on the approach to or at the point of just starting over, on the edge of their own “tipping point.

Whatever way we consider, the past, the present and the future I have come to one conclusion, that echoes out loudest over all my thoughts, and I have shared this in several settings over the last 3 years.  It was so loud in my thinking that it drowned out every other thought in my mind; it is “what got me here will not get me there”.   An understanding formed in me, that what ever brought me to know what I now knew, whatever had positively assisted, empowered and served me/us, was not sufficient to carry me/us into tomorrow.  A now, new moment had arrived, in every new moment there is a new encounter, which is necessary to envision and equip the day.   Moses saw God in the burning bush, Abraham met God for his journey and new pilgrim life style, even Jesus encountered the Father in the Garden to face he cross, earlier he encountered the Father at his baptism in preparation for the wilderness and the 3 ½ years of function.

Wherever you are, I think the tipping point is becoming a life-style, not just a moment but also a way of life that we are always negotiating.  There is in fact a cost to be considered in every tipping point, be it into an event, a way of life, or a life choice, that will not even allow us to return to where it all began.

A place of no return so to speak, a rub-icon crossed?, this all sounds high and mighty, but we make these kinds of decisions daily.    Decisions effecting people and relationships, how we use our money, our job/vocational choices, we even see it in the small events of life as they may be.    Please realize that most lives are a sequence of small events and we cross rub-icons daily that have no pain attached but certainly are transformational in terms of our friendships and families – people, what we do – time, and the final resource in our lives, money and how we dispose of and work our money – finance.

Can I encourage you to think out of the box before you negotiate the “tipping point” and set your roller-coaster along life’s chosen pathway. Clear the house, your life first with start by determining I QUIT!   This I Quit will help the process of going over the edge taking that step forward I will give you just 4 “I Quit”

Quit making excuses

Quit complaining

Quit living in fear

Quit complaining 

Having chosen to negotiate my “tipping points”, having then welcomed them these “tipping points”, they have in turn set up various directions of life for me over the last 8 years.   It has caused much re-evaluation of resources, hearts, and direction as events and situations continue to present themselves.   I have had to remodel my view of life and more than that, remodel my view of God himself.    Which of course allows the remodeling of how we function.  Knowing this discovering View of God that will determine how well we all live.

Following all that I am excited over the phase we have now began to live though, a phase that clearly brings multiplication in a new way into my thinking.   Seeing Apostolic networks possibly becoming Apostolic families, heavily relational rather than organizational, realizing that we should not replace the single grace that so empowered many and much in last 30 years + with another grace, endorsing a Papal system again, but seeing the release of multiplication of apostolic graces across the countries and world in this phase.    Many networks or movements are giving way to family expressions with a relationship life flowing across them and through them, which is releasing the possibilities of continual multiplication.    It must then continue to fill the world we live in with organic family expression of Christ.

It’s a time not to be nostalgic in any way but to seize the new phase and take hold of the circumstances that now face each of us.

Mission – Missional – Missionary

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Face our Mission

Mission? What’s it got to do with me?

How, and where do you start when you are asked to write something on mission,  my thoughts go to the challenges of a coming Kingdom and the changing of the  world around us, causing me to conclude  that mission has to have a focus towards  the Ultimate Goal of God,  i.e. “all things summed up in Christ”, “Christ filling all things”.

I was once asked by a well know teacher  “are you doing anything today that will continue when time is finished and Jesus returns?”,  “yes” I replied, he continued with a further question, “are you doing anything that you will not be doing after his return?”  My answer was “yes” his reply  “why?”   In others words keep your eye on the ultimate, in all you put our hand to.

I cannot read any scripture without realising that the Father and the  Holy Spirit have a preoccupation with the Christ.    Our work and involvement must therefore, have this same preoccupation, we must be fully occupied with Christ, other wise the task ahead will overwhelm us and we will lose our way.   As a matter of fact the entire occupation of the heavens is Christ.    It is so easy for us to focus and emphasise one particular spiritual truth, value, virtue, gift, or good work and yet miss Christ, Christ who is the embodiment and incarnation of all these things.

All mission and commission looses its way and purpose without holding on to the ultimate of goal of God.

I was recently provoked by the following question “why was I born in the West, with all  the privileges of the culture  I find myself in?”   As I pondered on this question my first thoughts were ones of a great gratitude for all I have been given and entrusted with.  Then, I compared my lot with the 2/3rd of the world around me and began to ask why, why God was I born here?   As I considered the privileges we are surrounded by I was amazed at what God has made available to us.  The privilege of freedom, the privilege of finance, even in a world that is in the middle of recession we have so much compared to those that live on less than a $1 a day.

I cannot depart far from the scripture story that started with the debate for position amongst the young men and women that followed the Christ,  debating who would get the best seat in the house.     While this debate went on Jesus told them of a landowner who distributed money to each of his servants, for them  to invest /steward the entrustment in-order that on his return a profit would be seen.   This profit in turn would open up  further entrustment opportunities, not of finance but of city rulership – those who are faithful with little becoming  rulers of much.

This narrative deals with a number of thought patterns, for example the disciples idea of Kingdom coming NOW.  The immediate and sudden NOW, putting Jesus on the throne NOW.  The story is however a story of PROCESS, this being working with and stewarding our entrustment to bring about Gods’ full intent.   We are living in days when regardless how much or how little we have been given, we have to see this PROCESS OF STEWARDSHIP.  We must deal correctly with what we have been given in order to see the influence of God, and Christ filling all in all taking place, as we do, so we will be entrusted further.

So why were you and I born in the nation you were?  which ever nation that may be ,  we must  steward correctly that with which we have been entrusted, so that we might bring an end to poverty,  never mind how tight things are in the midst of recession, we still have a charge to steward the little and the much.

We have been positioned and entrusted with ability to

1          Redistribute – wealth, justice, liberty

2          To bring Christ into every sphere of life and society

3          To break poverty – and dependence for all

Poverty is not fundamentally the  lack of money, but it is the imprisonment into a dependence on others for liberty, finance and personal freedom.   I would like to eradicate ‘dead aid’, where money has simple been poured in time and time again with no sense of building creating only  future dependence.   I would like to  invest in people, and take away the cause of  dependency on some one else for resources. Through our kindness and giving of money  in some cases, often unknowingly, we have added to the poverty mindset and sustained  imprisonment.    We have given much, equipment, tractors, seeds, houses, computers, etc., when our hearts and emotions moved us.  What we failed to realise was that  when what ever we gave  broke down, needed  new tyres, parts or repairs the people once again became dependant on  another hand out – lets break poverty and take away dependency.   It is  not about ceasing giving, far from it, but it is about wisely entrusting to men and women, training in self sustainability and providing them with the mind-set of continuing long after the initial help.  This is long-term empowerment, this is our mission.   Giving people the ability to advance handing them the stewardship of their own advancement.

 After all the advancement of each person in a way that is Kingdom of God thinking will bring about heavens occupation “Christ filling all in all”

Kingdom, its only getting started…

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Changes that have occurred through the decades due to a Kingdom proclamation and Life style
The following statements are in no way conclusive; they are just meant to be short statements of changes I have noted that have been brought about through considering the Kingdom, of God in instruction and practice.   Each statement has a weight of scripture and instruction behind it.   I have not attempted to fill this  out in any way, I simply wanted to make a statement and let it sit there and provoke thought in you.   We could debate for many long nights over them, I also know that as I am a frustrated dyslexic you will need time to pull out and understand what I mean for a number of the statements….. but see how you get on and feed back as we continue to develop a Kingdom understanding
  • Kingdom will place the King at the centre of all.   It establish a Christ-Centred gospel, not a doctrine, not a denomination or stream but in practice a relationship based life working together for this to be seen in revelation, established instruction and practice therefore through a lifestyle
  • We do not plant a church we go and EMBODY the Kingdom
  • We have a head – no other head is required Christ is our head.  There  is   not a hierarchical structure but servant hood to the Christ
  • Ministry and Life are the same,  It’s not about filling a post but about being yourself in the ministry and in the market place of life
  • What the Kingdom looks like in its fullness is still to be answered, it’s certainly not gathering around a church structure
It is a People movement (Eph 4:11) – a people who are Eph 4:11 in character for our world and in our world, being the Apostolic, prophetic people of God in their corporate nature.
The restoration of ministries (Eph 4) is more about the Restoration of Christ to the body and not just a restoration of ministries otherwise we will become hierarchical once again
  • A Corporate ONE people – how to live in diverse harmony!
 What keeps us apart/separated, is there any thing legitimate? – a relationship based on the diversity of Christ in expression, a true Holy Spirit people are a diverse people by nature of what the Holy Spirit is producing and therefore there is a great need of a Holy Spirit lifestyle to be able to live diversely.
  • The question is asked What are we to be to one another?  The implications and practice of this is a due to a Kingdom understanding.
  •  Finance & Kingdom, the Father wants to develop a world financial system not just a tithe, the establishment of a tithing people with a social responsibility/creational responsibility to see the tithe in regard to the Kingdom being larger than church money only, discovering a world economy system to bring justice and a stewardship
  • Property – a fatigue regarding owning church buildings etc has effected many
  • Forgiveness and Servanthood are central  while we work to produce communities that are forgiving and serving to our world
  • The message of the Kingdom is a DECONSTRUCTION message, deconstructing anything that is not Kingdom in function and action
  • Relevant question being asked – how far does Kingdom extend?  –  And to what end?
THE KINGDOM OF GOD HAS BECOME OUR REFERENCE POINT 
The church is an emerging church – constantly emerging and changing, being the nature of God  it is still arriving, it represents an age to come not just a history
The Kingdom has brought hope and seeks to realise the promises of God with in communities, as we do this we become a blessing, blessed to bless,  a servant people with signs of the Kingdom following, as we live God’s future NOW!
  • Churches for so long moved in Kingdom teaching, the teaching  was often taken on board as a way to get to where they wanted to be, rather than it becoming a way of life, it’s a challenge when no one wanted to change to be transformers
  • We stopped only reading apostle Paul’s view and refocused on Jesus – the humanity of Jesus and love has become the characteristics of the church – we will get the gospel wrong if we do not refocus on Jesus (writers and commentators such as NT Wright, Jonathan Yoder, David Bosa, Leslie Newbigan influencers)
  • The church is a Sign and a Servant of the coming Kingdom, a servant that points beyond to a reign that will fill all
  • The church is a ‘pilgrim’, on a ‘becoming’ church journey
  • The kingdom gives rise to a community and not vice versa, church is a product of mission before being an agent of mission
  • Family is the correct form of Government it should be seen as the correct practice of church government, then the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, children will then be gifted as elders, apostles etc
  • Kingdom demands an INCLUSIVE PRACTICE V EXCLUSIVE Practice which is displayed in action and attitude
  • We do not chase God out of a place neither do we call spiritual and secular divides into being any longer, but see him, the Christ, in every place.
  • Kingdom is not about gathering, collecting many, but the essence of the Kingdom is seen in generosity – giving away what we have – people, money, time etc., sending and releasing
  • Kingdom is about being a fathering people, an apostolic prophetic people… in our world and not about having a few of these people resident in a local church, it is about bringing the atmosphere of Christ to our society and cosmos.
  • The Gospel of the Kingdom makes possible full participation with God in the redemption of the  world – cosmos
  • To let the church exist without the Kingdom is to be without Jesus (NO King/rule) and thus with no proper identity as a people of God
  • Who you are as a people of God is tied into the Kingdom, to bring identity – image and likeness which cannot come outside of the Kingdom otherwise people become a commodity and church will produce  a consuming commodity rather than a Governing Family
  • The Kingdom is about identifying with Jesus, it’s about Jesus not a methodology, it’s about his glory (John 17 church given glory)and his life (not I that live).   Not an event, ritual, creed or religion – A JOURNEY OF TRUST AND ADVENTURE.
  • The GOOD NEWS is not about being saved and seeing sins gone, but about THE KINGDOM COMING
  • We have come to abolish the ‘Secular Space’ it is ‘modernist’ thinking, note the Kingdom is everywhere Kingdom means there is no realm without God, how can then can we create one space, not a dual space (secular – spiritual)?
  • We are a community and because we are a community we are DIVERSE
  • Incarnation means the combination of sacred and secular
  • A people of God who are becoming and have become CONTRIBUTORS
  • The Kingdom brings about a Church that is about being SENT and about being PRIESTS to their space
  • To teach on prayer is to ask for the Kingdom to come!  Your Will be done, not my needs – God supply me; my stuff – this is my identity; and my rights – this is why I was saved  for me? –  the ‘new trinity’ my needs,wants and desires, the Kingdom of God asks for the Father’s will to come and be done
  • A necessary question due to Kingdom ‘if Jesus was here what would he be doing?’
Leadership
  • There is a Leadership move from hierarchical to non-hierarchical   Why – priesthood of all believers and  Servant leadership
  • leadership by Persuasion/appeal rather than control, issues of power are exposed and challenged by the Kingdom of God
  • Servanthood replaces dominion; forgiveness absorbs hostility
  • Leadership to equip for the world, not just equipping a church paradigm
  • Keeping the community in the story – this is Kingdom leadership focused on the Kingdom of God
  • The Kingdom challenges leadership behaviour that is based on power, control, submission and authority – Leadership is to produce a peaceable community, non-hierarchical priesthood of all believers, with a relationship to its head – Christ
  • To move from the Vision of a leader, to a Vision held by ALL, and the will of God
  • To teach on prayer is to ask for the Kingdom to come!  Your Will be done
Culture/World 
  • Engagement not removal – GO not come to us – commission for missional life
  • Responsibility not Judgment (Levitical priesthood V Melchizedek priesthood)
  • Mission – goes into, not drags out of – demands people maturity – consumer mentality with everything performed at the at the front undermines this maturity, as only a few do for all, rather than all do for a world
  • Service not conformity
  • Missional not Missionary
General
  • Character focused – not gift
  • Sanctification – the bride making her self ready
  • Gift is you, be yourself do not perform
  • Waking up to the fact that we have been told we need to die but now waking up to how we need to live (eschatology had an escapism view, creation being burned up view, this is  not any longer the predominant view, it’s now redemptive and restorative) – it’s not just trying to believe in Jesus to get to heaven.   It’s about being increasingly alive to Jesus and God in our world – bringing heaven to earth –  INCARNATION LIFE STYLE AND WALK.
  • God wants US to solve the problem by redeeming acts not us waiting for him do it
Socially 
  • Hands and Feet of Jesus
  • Justice view – partnership, removal of poverty not charity provision
  • A new world system if we are to posses a generation
  • How to be a manifestation of Christ and an explanation of the Father through love and Justice (John 1:18 “explain the Father” NASB)
  • If we are not bringing justice and transformation to the world we should ask, “do we have the right to exist?”
  • Mission defines us more than worship – Putting my whole family into the chaos (Genesis 1, Incarnation etc) in order to see what it means for the Kingdom of God in operation!
Theology
  • It has exposed an eschatology of truth with a responsibility for creation and challenges, changes an escapism view and teaching it is much more about redemption, transformation, restoration of our world
  • Kingdom removes all ideas of escapism and brings transformation forcefully
  • This changes our worship, church structures and societal contact – Works of Service
  • The Earth is the Lords not only the church
  • “God loves” – he sent his Son for the creation “cosmos”
  • The Gospel is PARTICIPATING IN GODS REDEEMING ACTS
  • Kingdom – reign of God is about life in the Garden (Creation, Cosmos)
Our attitudes and lifestyle can be summed up in being:
Authentic, real, relational, organic, simple
To be and maintain a Family
Paradigm culture change in  the way we have been and will educate
Acknowledging we are in a reformation on all these levels
A foundational lesson for us all is that our ‘View of God determines how well you live’  – necessary that our world view is constructed through an ever arriving God.   He is still disclosing himself to us that we might live free and well according to what we see according to the Christ filling all in all this heavenly Father creator God filling our view
Hey I am only getting started

Declaring the Kingdom of God

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We have over the years been schooled into an understating of Kingdom, which has brought its own challenges.   Each of us comes from a reality into which we have been educated, instructed and worked, all of these paradigms  groom our thinking.   Many of us are still coming to terms with what we call “KINGDOM” the scriptures and the revelation of God regarding what we call the central message and only message of Jesus, The Kingdom of God is still unfolding.   It would be dangerous to state I know it all, have it all, and be the fount of all knowledge,  as there is the breath of God which is ready to unpack yet more.

Kingdom in itself is different to every  other kind of teaching, it has a life in itself, it has within it, the voice and the message of the King.  Teaching can be taught and returned to within a teaching cycle but this Kingdom message once introduced will allow the rule of the Father to flow into every area of function and practice.   In essence once introduced it has a way of touching into areas not previously considered.    We can talk about the rule of God and the implications of that manifesting in my finances but before we know it Kingdom is working and marriages come under scrutiny, parenting, relationships, etc…..  The Kingdom of God seems to have a life of its own, the rule of God invades our lives at every level.

I would even go as far as to say that the Kingdom of God ‘deconstructs’ everything, practices, theology and functions to bring the rule of God to bear.   Everything we do is deconstructed, but not in the way commonly accepted, deconstruction has had a negative connotation attached to it in some circles,  but what we see is the Kingdom deconstructing in such a  way that anything that is not  representative of the Kingdom of God is challenged.   The Spirit then works to bring about  change to enable the Kingdom to flow.  Therefore we should expect that how we live on Sundays, or Mondays to Fridays will  all  have to come in line with this Kingdom.

Jesus, John the Baptist, and the apostles went about proclaiming the kingdom–not the church (Matthew 3:2, 4:17, 10:7; Acts 28:30-31). The influence of the Kingdom is through out all creation, the rule of God holds all things together, within this rule we have the Church, Church and the Kingdom being one yet one word describes a called out people under the rule of God – Church and the term the rule of God over all and in all creation – Kingdom.   So we then say ‘although the church is in the kingdom, it is not the entire kingdom”.     When my children were very young there was a British children’s program called ‘Playschool‘ in the middle of the 30 min program they would be asked a question regarding the topic under focus “Which window shall we look through children?” was the question, a round open window, a square one, and a third shape were then all displayed.    Through one of three windows a view of the world would be seen.    Life surrounds it self with similar views, we choose to look at life’s issues and practices through our own reality windows, this is so plain to see regarding the understating we live by in regards to the Kingdom of God.    That is,  if you and I see through a Kingdom of God shaped window/reality we see the Kingdom and the Church as one, they are synonymous, one movement of God which cannot and must not be separated, are seeing through the Kingdom or the Church shaped window is the foundation of our world view, our perceive paradigms.

I have come across some folk who use the excuse, “well I am given to the kingdom” – meaning they want the liberty to be independent rather than live and understand the structures of the church,  yet a Kingdom understanding makes the Church and Kingdom one in such  a way that it cannot be separated, one being the product and the other continuing the proclamation etc.   Then you have those who look  only through a church window, a local church window  and see a conflict between the two, the church and the Kingdom.    Watchman Nee had an impact on some of the separation of Church and Kingdom, I would suggest that was unhelpful, as they are one and the same,  the Church is in the Kingdom, but the Kingdom and the rule of God is greater.    We must not see separation but see only one message, one Kingdom, one people of the Kingdom and one message proclaimed by the people.

So be careful and ask yourself the question,  “what window am I looking through?”

“Kingdom” denotes the rule of God over the whole cosmos, not just one  single entity here on the earth, like the church.  In spite of this, most preaching today has as its goal, to get people to make a weekly two-hour commitment to come to a building on Sundays and give tithes to support that building! This is because a spirit of religion has captivated the church and blinded the minds, so that we now have a very limited church mindset, instead of a kingdom perspective. This has had a negative result and the Spirit is again addressing a change so that the Kingdom message can have its full and ultimate effect.

While considering this let me suggest the following contrasts between these two mindsets:

A kingdom mindset will release all saints/all people of God, the called out ecclesia, as ministers in the marketplace, empowering them to make a radical, foundational transformation in that community. A church mindset trains people to serve in its church structure, especially on a Sunday, Sundays are solely an implication of the chosen expression decided upon, in this format  we work on getting worship teams, stewards, children’s and crèche workers, catchers, etc, etc, these may be necessary due to the choice of shape we have decided upon rather than being the true  ‘works of service’ to our world and communities.

A Kingdom mindset will work and believe to create wealth, to transform a community and ultimately a nation. A church mindset motivates giving to build our own church programs.

A Kingdom mindset is a holistic approach that integrates the gospel with politics, economics, and public policy. A church mindset insulates the gospel from politics and public policy.

A Kingdom mindset will see the Bible as a blueprint, as a guide to structure every aspect of society that brings us to realize that everything in  life is spiritual.  A church mindset views the Bible merely as a book that enables us to escape the world, enter heaven, and be spiritual.

A Kingdom mindset enables the church to embrace and love their surroundings the  un-churched communities. With a church mindset churches only embrace converted individuals within their faith communities, and see a big separation between the church and world,  staying with a siege mentality and retaining their separation.

A Kingdom mindset will train people and prepare them for all of life. A church mindset trains people for church life and activity.

A Kingdom mindset nurtures leaders who are world changers and “culturally creative” who articulate truth to society. A church mindset nurtures leaders who speak religious language relevant only to church people.

A Kingdom mindset speaks of the rule of God over the entire created order.    Church mindset speaks of the rule of God through church offices and gifts, deacons and elders over those in a church congregation.

A Kingdom mindset Ministries of God will release people to their vocational callings in the marketplace. A church mindset controls people by marginalizing their marketplace callings and emphasizing only their Sunday ministries, ministries within their structure.

A Kingdom immerses people into their world, that they become influencers at every level to their world, enabled to be effective in society and every walk of life.  A church mindset involves a spirituality that separates from the natural world, it keeps us thinking of escape from a fallen world rather than be partakers of the Restoration of the Cosmos that God so loves.

A Kingdom mindset is a working toward a Restoration of a world where Christ fills all walks, all ways and the whole of creation.  Those with a church mindset merely strive for a particular expression, stream, denomination, and structure of Christianity to be filled.

A Kingdom mindset churches equip 100% of the saints to fill up all things in every realm of life (Ephesians 4:10-12). Those with a church mindset have as their primary goal to equip the 2-3% of the congregation called to be full-time church pastors, ministers, and missionaries.

YOU have a Kingdom message, a Christ rule, to bring the ultimate intentions of God to bear on the whole of the cosmos “God so loves the cosmos (world) he gave” Kingdom is the giving, taking root and affecting the whole of  life.   I have written these to provoke further discussion, enable us to discover what God is still bringing to us in our understanding of the Kingdom, these thoughts are not conclusive stances necessarily they are listed to provoke debate so come and talk.   Neither must I say are they statements made between any particular shape or model of church function (mega, simple, home, celebration, cell, the list is endless) it is an attempt to grapple and consider a biblical grasp of Kingdom and Church of our century.

Essential, Primary for our TIME

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my times are in your hands

Three seasons of time are spoken of in relation to Jesus, “… yesterday, today and forever…”     I would suggest to you that time is a gift created by the Father and given to you along with a place, both creational gifts given to humanity.     We make the mistake of seeing eternity as a long period of time but actually its no time, a place where time is no, the place that time was created form as a gift to you and me.      Place and Time are to be celebrated, but let us focus on Time for now, time is to be redeemed, time is to be accounted for, we learn to “…number our days…”, asking the Father to teach us to make them count. This is not a heavy judgment but the celebration of looking forward to making each day full in destiny and purpose.

Hebrews 13:8 tells of these three seasons whether Christ of God should be found in yesterday, today, forever, in other words in every day, hour, minute, even second, it encourages us with the statements of “For Jesus doesn’t change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he’s always totally himself.” (Message).

Within yesterday, today, tomorrow we are engaged in many activities many focuses, many visions that require us to take up another three resources we have in life, we employ the these three resources time, money and of course people. In these three seasons of yesterday, today, tomorrow we have three resources people, time, money and it is in the way we take hold of these resources and combine them in the seasons that will have a major impact and influence on what we call the Kingdom of God.

Let me suggest to you a further ‘threesome’ that are necessary in life’s scope, to make sense of sometimes a senseless world and to bring clarity in confused circumstances. I will offer this threesome as questions, firstly to ask that you might ponder them, considering our ways in the light of each answer we might furnish

What is the Primary purpose of God in History?

What is the Essential purpose of God in Christ?

What is the Essential message of God for our time?

I have a one word answer for you to ponder, it is the answer to all three it is RESTORATION

But what do I mean by that?   Simply as a definition one could say “ bringing things to their final state”  or “Progress of God’s purpose to its fullness”. For we are not looking to restore back to any particular moment of history or of time, but restoration embodies the restoration of Gods full intention when he spoke into being seasons and time.    Restoration to Gods ‘ultimate intention’, what He had in view when he said “Let there be…”

In order to understand the message of God for our time lets call it the “now” word of God we must first note the phrase “Times (seasons) of restoration” Acts 3:21, and must equally note that Christ with the culmination of time after in such a season as this.

Seasons – what picture does this word cultivate “times of refreshing”, the ages of mankind, childhood, youthful seasons?    We often hear today of the necessity of Revival with which I would concur with completely. However Revival must flow into a Reformation, which in turn must bring Restoration, anything less would be a distraction and a loss. Revelation must flow to renew which must go through a season of establishment so that very revelation must become part of life, each one flowing into the other, each one leading from one to another to achieve a climax.

Although we look through history, history that we can appreciate unravelled when a season flowed from one season to another such as Luther, Wesley, and Whitfield each had its impact and made its contribution.    What about in our lifetime baptism, gifts of the spirit, healing, supernatural, worship and praise, discipleship, faith in life, restoration of apostles and prophets, Kingdom focus all these of being seasons that each one of us have seen flowing from one to another. Yet we are still waiting ‘…times of restoration…’, of fullness. These seasons are accelerating by rushing into each other to become part of each other as each one of these revelations and experiences belong to the whole.

This is an unstoppable move of God as we see the rushing of the Holy Spirit to complete the eternal purpose the bringing of the church to its fullness and the final glorious condition where all of creation would declare the Christ of God (Heb 11:10,16; 12:22; 1314; rev 21:2, 21:10).    Maturity in the church, making her the instrument of blessing worldwide not so much as all of us becoming evangelists, although we must all share our faith but a corporate evangelist communicating the life of God to mankind in a way that they might become the Disciples of Christ. In a way that is incarnational and culturally relevant “…explaining the father…” John 1:17 (NASB) to our generation and time.

This is the Essential message of Jesus.

God fully expressed in mankind “Word became flesh”, you and I might be the incarnation that our neighbours and work colleagues might find the full expression of God in their daily routine of life. But this is no science-fiction story but a truth that God’s ‘Tomorrow-Age’ mankind, mankind in its final condition in the image of God will rule and fill creation (mankind the lover of mankind, mankind the communicator of God, mankind the disciple maker).

The essential message of Jesus brought mankind and God together to be engaged in a throne destined.

The message of God to our time is not so much what we are saying but it is what you and I are becoming, that the word might be made flesh again, that our words might become tangible in them through lives. Should be seen in these two simple statements:

What we are becoming as individuals in Christ

What we are becoming as a corporate Christ the church, ecclesia

But this tomorrow aged people flesh out the:

Love of God

Life of God (happy, content, excited, fulfilled)

Nature of God (Creator, Saviour, Father, James 5:20 disciple)

Being as he was, the is “ perfect” – complete, holy, righteous, well-adjusted

Perfectly at home in humanity

Perfectly at home in God likeness

All this brings demands upon us as we seek to  become mature in the fullness of Christ we are to:

Know God – right concept, your view of God

Know ourselves

Live in reality

Live as a community of the King

Live in the power of God’s life

What is the message of our time?   WE ARE

A closing thought, If ours does not prove to be the final generation of TIME, let mankind look back on what “WE ARE”, not what we taught, information only. As we serve God in our generation.

His purpose: his interests: his will and goals.

We pray that history about time will have more to say about the many much more, the mature, full corporate people than just the one or two.