Note: To view the posts in this series, you can use the Search Bar at the very bottom. To view all posts chronologically please go to “PRIOR POSTS” Selection on Menu Bar. (“Uncategorized” link gets you vintage posts.) Once you’ve selected a post, if you scroll to the very bottom, you’ll find navigation links to help you easily traverse through the topic.

This Series is basically a year-long deep-delve into Matthew 6:10:

Thy Kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·: Come the Kingdom of You; Be done the Will of You; As in heaven, so also upon earth (no punctuation in Greek).

From my first post:  “My interpretation of this excerpt from the Lord’s prayer (and I’m not saying that it’s a universal viewpoint) is that we should pray that the heavenly Kingdom will come down to earth; so that theoretically, from a supernatural perspective, we could have “Kingdom living” on earth if God answers our prayer.  Also, I believe that Jesus wanted us to pray this so He could make it happen. He essentially gave us the promise of a heaven-come-down-to-earth Kingdom/existence.

“My motivation for this series: I heard a TV pastor talking about how perfect Manna was and how it fulfilled all the nutritional requirements for the Hebrews who were traveling through the wilderness on the way to the promised land. It was all natural, organic, perfectly engineered for maximum physiological benefit. Judaic tradition additionally holds that the people did not eliminate for 40+ years!

“I began to wonder why, given that the teeniest nutritional need was met by Manna, and that God was perfect in his provision, the Hebrews lusted after meat…Bear in mind, that this meat craving occurred while they were following a pillar of cloud/fire around from place to place. An awesome manifestation of God’s presence was literally right in front of their noses. If that wasn’t a ‘Kingdom Living Opportunity,’ I don’t know what was!

“This search for manna answers was concurrent with a season in which I was assessing my spiritual standard- of-living.  My general assessment was that I couldn’t tell you what Kingdom living was, but I could tell you what it was not…About the same time as my deep-dive-into-self was happening, my pastor became more radical for Christ and prescribed an aggressive Bible reading regimen. He wanted us to read from the Gospel of John through Revelation in 40 days 🙂

“I accepted the 40-Day Bible Challenge out of obedience; but was halfway through when I slowed my roll to a screeching halt. In the middle of plunging through Paul’s epistles I had a major epiphany: the Apostle Paul spent most of his existence in this heaven-come-down-to-earth Kingdom! I subsequently attempted to come up with a name for this type of person. I was going to use Kingdom Dweller, but it would have been a copyright violation; so I’m using the expression “Kingdom Occupier.” I believe that Paul was a Kingdom Occupier (KO) and I’d like to be one too.

“Part of my struggle with believing in/appropriating Jesus’ Kingdom Promise involves my inevitable tendency to get into guilt-induced religious works.  For about two years I have been grappling with how I continually rejoice with Paul in the grace of God when there are so many rules and regs in the New Testament.  If you focus on all of Paul’s do’s and don’ts, it’s like trying to jubilantly embrace the latest and greatest thrilling and riveting sequel to…Leviticus…

“Well, taking a warp drive through the epistles really changed things for me on a significant level. God mercifully re-framed things for me—I began to see things from the perspective of how I would  believe/respond/behave if I were living in this marvelous heaven-come-down-to-earth Kingdom that we pray for in the Lord’s prayer. I probably would be giving the same counsel as Paul did, in terms of putting away any behavior that might be offensive to God.

“So rather than a litany of do’s and don’ts, I have decided to view Paul’s injunctions as a symptom of how somebody behaves when they are a KO. A KO is rewired with an entirely new priority system.  And again it’s just my opinion, but I believe that there may have been a few hissy fits in the epistles; however, for the most part, Paul was not a straddler who was in one day and out the next.  He was firmly entrenched in the Kingdom.”

My Pauline epiphany subsequently resulted in a year-long series in which we address the following topics:

1. The King
2. Kingdom characteristics and priorities
3. Characteristics of Kingdom Occupiers (KOs)
4. Characteristics of “Kingdom wreckers”
5. How do we get in? (Kingdom Pre-requisites)
6. How do we stay in? (all-in versus Kingdom Straddlers)
7. KO Examples
8. Final overview about what the Kingdom is (and why we would want to go there).

In conclusion, from my last post in this series:

“I pray that…you let the Joy of Jesus permeate every part of your being. And, furthermore, I pray that you will find great success in your search for His Kingdom…and Him.”

++++++++++++

Note: To view the posts in this series, you can use Search Bar at the very bottom. To view all posts chronologically please go to “PRIOR POSTS” Selection on Menu Bar. (“Uncategorized” link gets you vintage posts.) Once you’ve selected a post, if you scroll to the very bottom, you’ll find navigation links to help you easily traverse through the topic.