Once, having
been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The
kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people
say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘there it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.’
Good
Salvation Wednesday morning, my dear brothers and sisters. Yes, it is Wednesday, and that means it is
Salvation Wednesday on this line and the day we pray for those who might not be
saved. J We also pray that God will use we who are saved to help bring in the
lost. Again I want to remind all of you
that “you cannot save a soul,” that is up to Jesus, but He needs us to bring in
the lost sheep to be saved. Today, May
30th, is the true date of Memorial Day, so again I want to say
thanks to all those who worked so hard in our military and who have gone on
before us that I for one appreciate it.
Without the service of those who served this country we would not be
free and if not for our Lord Jesus, we would not have personal freedom. Thirty years ago on this date, which was a
Sunday, Dolores and I were married. Our
honeymoon consisted in driving cars in a Memorial Day parade on May 31,
1982. I drove my 1955 T-Bird Convertible
and she had the 1979 T-Bird T-tops. I
had a WW2 Veteran on board, and she a Gold Star Mother. After the parade I was asked to join the
American Legion, and she the auxiliary!
I told them this. Dolores is the
veteran, and I am not. Back then we were
not asked the other way around. Neither
of us joined, she never joined the Legion, and I never joined the
auxiliary. WOMEN ARE VETERANS TOO … WAY
TO GO, LADIES … Thanks to Dolores, Air
Force, Sharon, Navy, and Dian, Navy.
Just a trio of lady veterans in our lives.
5/30/12 The Coming of the Kingdom of God: 1 Luke 17:20 – Once, having been asked by the
Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of
God does not come with your careful observation, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here
it is,’ or ‘there it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” (NIV)
Let’s take a
look at the scripture today and break it down a tad. Here we see the Pharisees asking Jesus when
the Kingdom of God will come. Now let me
say this, how many times have you heard something like this today? How many people are trying to figure out when
Jesus is going to return? Everyone
thinks it will be soon, and I agree, I think it will be soon. I mean we have been seeing signs on the sides
of barns for years and years and years that say “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco”,
whoops, that was the wrong sign. We have
been seeing signs on the sides of barns for years and years that say “The
Kingdom of God is Near” and/or “Ye Must be Born Again” or “John 3:16” and while
the new barns might not sayi those things, some of the old ones are still
around.
I could give
you a lot of reasons why I think the return of our Lord Jesus is near, but I am
not “wasting my time” trying to figure it out, for not even Jesus knows when He
is coming back … But I love the answer that Jesus gave the Pharisees, and
folks, it is a fact today … Why? Because
Jesus is still the same.
So today we
look at the next part of the scripture of today … “Jesus replied, ‘The kingdom
of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here
it is,’ or ‘there it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
Folks, let
me make it very simple today, if you “Are Not Born Again’, if you have not
asked Jesus to come into your heart, you as of right now are NOT in the Kingdom
of God. However, if you have called upon
the Lord and asked him to forgive you and to come into your heart, Jesus is
telling us that we already have the Kingdom of God and it is on board with
us. Folks, what this is telling this old
man in very simple words is that Jesus, Himself, is indeed the Kingdom of God. So maybe if we see a sign on the side of a
barn that says, “The Kingdom of God is Near”, we should do this, “The Kingdom
of God is Here.” Paint over the word “Near”
and write in “Here.” So tomorrow, Lord
willing, and He does not return tonight (we never know, do we?), I will be back
writing on this subject. Time to wrap it
up for today …
Dear Father
in Heaven, please forgive me of my sins and come into my heart so that I may
have the Kingdom of God in my heart.
Lord, now help me go to work for You, in your fields of Harvest as You
command all of us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Now please
go forth, working for Jesus, inviting Him into your heart and sharing your
blessings that He has loaned to you … Love ya, Pastor Dan.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment