How do you know you’re in the kingdom of God?

What does the Gospel look like when it comes to life?

Someone once demanded that the Christ prove himself, his Gospel, and his kingdom.

The Christ responded with this proof:

Go tell John [the Baptist] what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them (Gospel of Luke 7:22).

Do you notice that in the proof the Christ gave about himself and his kingdom, all of it has to do with the health and strength of bodies and none of it has to do with “spirituality”?

Health–meeting the actual, real-life needs of human bodies–is the essence of the Gospel and the kingdom of God. At least if you believe it the way the Christ tells it.

Re-read the Gospels and it is plain to see: Jesus of Nazareth’s ministry was as much a...

A Christian has no enemies.

This may be the hardest thing about Christian life.

Harder than mission work that can take us far from home.

Harder than morals that keep us from what we crave.

One thing we crave in our human spirits: Enemies.

Enemies to blame. Enemies to fight.

Enemies to put down so that we can put ourselves up: “Look how bad they are!”

But if we keep our enemies, we cannot keep our Christ.

What did our Christ say?

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven…” (Gospel of Matthew 5:44).

Or: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Gospel of Matthew 5:9).

The children of God are the ones who have no enemies. They love and pray for those who would be enemies. They make peace like God makes peace.

Making peace is God’s plan. Making peace is God’s will.

Not...

What does the Christ call his Christians to do with their God-given rights?

Give them up.

Why? How?

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another" (Letter to the Galatians 3:13-15).

The Christ set us free to do with our rights as he did with his rights.

He gave them away. He gave them up. In love.

The example and teaching of our Christ makes five things clear:

First, our rights are gifts from God. Governments do not give rights. Governments cannot take them away.

Second, the rights God gives are gracious gifts of love. God gives them to us before we do one thing...

I don’t believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ because I can piece together enough proof to convince me that it is true.

I believe it because I want to believe it.

No matter how much proof we gather, no matter how strong a case we form, our beliefs always come down to what we want to believe.

I want to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ and so I do. This is faith.

But if you pressed me to give you reasons to believe the Gospel, I would give you two that mean a lot to me.

The first is that I see the Gospel every day in nature.

The sun sets at night (death) and rises every morning (resurrection).

Autumn and winter (death) give way to spring and summer (resurrection).

A seed goes into the ground (death) and a flower or fruit tree comes up in its place (resurrection).

I even see the Gospel in my own body. Every day, billions of my cells die (death) and billions of new cells are born...

I grew up in Ashland, Ohio. When I describe it to people, I start with: “If Normal Rockwell did a painting of a town…”

For 15 years now, I’ve lived in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. When you think of Detroit, what images come to mind? I think of assembly lines, concrete, smokestacks, and steel.

I grew up among conservative white people.

These days, I spend most of my time learning and working with progressive people of many colors and cultures different from my own.

I grew up in a small town Church of Christ congregation that taught obedience to the law as the best way to love and serve God.

Since 2008, I’ve been a member at a suburban Church of Christ congregation that encourages people to love God by following the Spirit.

I grew up choosing to be in close relationship with only Christians who shared my beliefs and practices.

For the last 25 years, I’ve grown very close and...

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting…but as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (Gospel of John 18:36).

On January 7, 2021, I posted about Donald Trump and the Christians who were willing to believe and follow him.

To say what I said (the way I said it) was not my norm.

My norm is to use words that I hope will make everyone feel at home. If I do come at you, I want to come swinging pillows and not fists.

But what I said on January 7 was not “pillowy.”

It was brass knuckles.

Someone noticed. “Coach” is a Christian man who is about my father’s age. He is a hero and role model of mine. When I’m facing a hard problem or tough choice, I sometimes try to imagine how Coach would handle it.

Coach did not like what I wrote. He sent me a private rebuke.

When a man like Coach rebukes me, I give...

The story of Christianity is the story worlds dying and worlds coming to life.

The Christian era starts with people asking Jesus of Nazareth: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Book of Acts 1:6).

God answered: “See, I am making all things new” (Book of Revelation 21:5).

Jesus got in trouble because he didn’t grant the people’s wish to go back to the way things used to be; he tried to lead them someplace they never went before–even in their dreams.

Those who chose to follow the Spirit of the Christ could barely believe the new world in which they came to live. Jews and Gentiles found themselves living together as family. They ate things they never imagined they would eat. They went places they never imagined they would go. They worshiped in ways they never imagined they would worship.

Even Saul of Tarsus, a Jew’s Jew educated and trained to...

I like to look at a photograph of my wife in her wedding dress.

Oh, boy. Let me tell you. I never get tired of that image. Looking at it, I go back over every detail about the way she looked on our wedding day. That memory is a well from which I enjoy drinking almost daily.

As much as that wedding picture means to me and as much as I think about it, there is an image of my wife that means a hundred times more.

It is the way she looks at the end of the day or when she first gets up in the morning. It’s when she’s in what she calls her “grubbies.”

When I see my wife in her grubbies, I have two thoughts:

1. I am jealous. It’s not fair that her beauty is so natural that she can look so good when she’s not even trying. It takes me great effort and time just to get presentable for the public. All she has to do is roll out of bed.

2. I’m the only one in the world who gets to see her like...

The Christ went looking for broken things.

He found them and put them back together again.

It was neither a magic trick nor an “object lesson,” but his passion and purpose in life. Healing got the Christ out of bed in the morning.

In today’s church of Christ, we mostly think of healing as something for persons. That is, the Christ heals the things that break a person.

That is true.

But the ancient church of Christ thought that healing was for peoples.

One early teacher in the church of Christ wrote:

“For [the Christ] is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Letter to the Christians in Ephesus, chapter 2, verse 14).

Here in 2021, we Christians need to spend time with this.

In my branch of the Christian family tree, we are eager to find broken persons to lead to the Christ who can heal...

When the Christ lived as a human being, he befriended people who most people knew not to befriend.

He said things that most people dared not say. Things like: “Your sins are forgiven.”

He touched people that most people knew better than to touch.

He went places that most people were smart enough to avoid.

Just look at him in the Gospels: Always doing or saying the wrong things with the wrong people in the wrong places.

His love made him do it. It turns out that the Christ loves those in the wrong as much as he loves those in the right.

Those “in the right,” however, didn’t think they needed a Christ. So the Christ went to those who were so far gone they already gave up on a Christ ever coming for them.

What a surprise the Christ turned out to be!

These days, who are the people most of us know not to befriend?

These days, what are the things people are aching to hear, but...