HIS KINGDOM, HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, HIS MAN

Two Saturdays ago, about 100 men gathered at the auditorium of Christ Chapel International Churches (CCIC), Ikeja Centre recently located to Wempco Road, Ogba, The rain that began early that morning and continued intermittently till late afternoon, did not deter this men, many of them from several chapters of Christian Men’s Network Nigeria, and quite a number first-timers at CMNN events.

As indicated here two weeks back, the theme of the event, Men’s Breakfast Plus, was His Kingdom, His Righteousness and the Real Man. And the featured speakers,  who arrived the venue even before yours sincerely, were Rev Dr Ayo Ayodele, a teacher of English Language at the Lagos State University who pastors CCIC, Ojokoro Centre and teaches the word of faith with even greater passion, and Rev David Abraham, Managing Director, Managing Business for Christ (MBFC).

Both presentations were, to say the least, eye-opening and convicting. But, I chose to refrain from rehashing what was said by the two men. Instead, I chose to address an issue which featured prominently in one form or another in many of the questions asked during the interactive session. Those questions reveal a certain dichotomy in the lives of a lot of us. Dichotomies between our work and worship; between our choice and God’s plan for our lives; between who the Bible says we are and who we are in reality.

To address this issue, I feel an obligation to quote extensively from a four-part serial I wrote two years ago, titled “Open Letter to Kingdom Persons.”  I shall try to do so as briefly as possible. Here goes:

The first point to note is that the Kingdom of God is already here on earth; it is not a later reality. In the introductory part of the serial, I tried to define the Kingdom of God.

“…A kingdom is a territory ruled by a potentate by whatever name called. And wherever that territory may be, the will of that ruler prevails. The same applies to the Kingdom of God on earth. The simplest way to understand this is to refer to the prayer the Lord Jesus taught His disciples, famously called the Lord’s Prayer. Two lines of that prayer are relevant to the matter at hand and they read: Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth; as it is in heaven (see Matthew 6:10). In other words, God already has a kingdom in heaven where his will is done, and if the Lord Jesus is asking that we pray that his will be done, it is easy to see that he implies that God desires a Kingdom on earth where his will prevails.

“…That kingdom is already in existence in the heart of millions of men and women who are living or are committed to living according to God’s will as expressed in his word, the Bible. The environment in which these kingdom persons operate and wield influence therefore represents and exemplifies the Kingdom of God on earth. The Church is the visible manifestation of that kingdom; it is the organism that works to keep the kingdom running and growing.”

Next, I pointed out that God’s kingdom on earth is a kingdom of sons:

“A major difference between this kingdom and other kingdoms is that whereas kingdoms of men normally consist of the king and his subjects. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of sons. That is to say, if you belong to the kingdom of God you are a son of God, not his subject or servant or slave. The Bible is clear about that. John 1:12 says: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name”. Romans 8:14 corroborates: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” 

“…When God decided to create his earthly kingdom, he began with a son, not a servant or slave. Proof of this is that God gave Adam dominion over all that he created, as in an inheritance. He did not ask him to keep and tend the garden as a condition for exercising dominion. Nor did he make his access to the things he had created commensurate to the quality or quantity of his garden-tending activities. Beyond that is the Bible’s express reference to Adam as the son of God in “Luke 3:38 – “Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God”. These should explain why Jesus’ work of redemption led inexorably to the restoration of man to sonship, not servanthood as indicated in the earlier quotes from the books of John and Romans. That should explain the designation of Jesus as “the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29); and the rest of us as: “…children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ…”(Romans 8:17).

I have said all of these, in order to say, or rather repeat something that I said in concluding the first part of that serial and which, some of the questions at Men’s Breakfast Plus reminded.“Now, many reading this already know and accept as true, the biblical assertion that we are sons of God. Many might even be walking in this truth in some areas of their life. But many of us are slaves masquerading as servants; some others are servants parading as sons, while some of the very best are merely living on the fringes of sonship. And it shows glaringly in everything. It shows in the way we pray and what we pray for. It shows in the way we praise and worship God whom we say we have accepted as our father.   It shows in our attitude to work; in how some of us have become slaves to work in the pursuit of what we call putting food on the table or providing for the family. It shows in how desperate we sometimes get in the pursuit of this all-important provision for the family, such that compromise has become the norm, even among Christians whether we are business persons, academics, politicians, civil servants or holders of high government posts”. (CONTINUES)