The Kingdom Suffers Violence

The weekly Sabbath, and the Feast of Tabernacles, which we recently observed with others of faith at time of this writing, both are intended to point us toward the time when God’s Kingdom will be established on the earth. Each Sabbath, and each Feast of Tabernacles, if kept properly, gives us a small foretaste of the Kingdom, to be reminded and convicted of its reality.

They remind us that the promised Kingdom of God is not just a pie-in-the-sky, Utopian dream, but an actual change in the government of the earth that will occur. It’s called the Kingdom of God because it will be a Kingdom, a literal government, established by the divine intervention of God Almighty himself in the world’s affairs and it will be ruled directly by God in the person of Jesus Christ (Daniel 7:14; Revelation 11:15).

Part of the reality of that promised Kingdom, however, is the fact that human beings have an opportunity to be participants in it, to have a part in the Kingdom of God, not as mere flesh and blood human beings, but as Sons of God changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ, helping him to administer truth, equity and justice on the earth (Daniel 7:27; Philippians 3:20-21; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 3:2; Revelation 20:6).

But what will it take for that opportunity to become a personal reality for each of us? From a personal standpoint, what will it take for you to be in God’s Kingdom? Continue reading

Keys To Happiness

What’s the purpose of human existence? Why do YOU exist? And does it have anything to do with your own personal long-term happiness and fulfillment? Have you ever stopped to think – to ask?

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Philosophers have pondered the question for thousands of years, but lacking God’s Spirit and rejecting his counsel their answers have been unsatisfactory and incomplete. Winston Churchill said, “…he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below…” (speech before the U.S. Congress, December 26, 1941). But he — though a great leader — did not know what that purpose is! Human beings of themselves cannot fully discover God’s purpose, but God does reveal it through his word coupled with the discernment granted through the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:6-14). Continue reading