Kingdom Focus
“Love each other with genuine affection,and take delight in honoring each other.” Romans 12:10
The Kingdom is our true home, the place we most long to be and the place where Christ in all and through all and above all. In the Kingdom of God people experience life differently than they do in this world, they delight in serving one another without recognition or reward, they walk into your life when everyone else walks out, and they comfort one another with the resurrection story. Even in their pain and sorrow, they revel in God’s Presence and shine with confidence.
The Kingdom of God is the pursuit of a different kind of life, one based on reckless generosity, gracious hospitality, and healthy relationships. But like any Kingdom, its ways are foreign to us, its culture distinct, and it’s values rather shocking. To live here and feel at home among its people, we must be willing to give up our ways and be intentional about learning its ways.
The Kingdom of God is not a place waiting for you when you die, but an ongoing expression of the life of Christ today.
Read Part 3 – Mission Minded
Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
Prayer of Sir Francis Drake, December 1577
…along with the thoughts of Emily Dickinson expressed in her poem…the thoughts of Emerson and Stanley for your consideration and pondering…and, prayerfully, for your living….
“Success”
(Inaccurately attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“To laugh [and smile] often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded
“What Constitutes Success”
By Bessie Stanley (1905)
“He has achieved success who has lived well,
laughed [and smiled] often and loved much;
who has gained the respect of intelligent men
and the love of little children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
who has left the world better than he found it,
whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty
or failed to express it;
who has always looked for the best in others
and given them the best he had;
whose life was an inspiration;
whose memory, a benediction.”