Are You Going to Be in the Kingdom?
May 2, 1999
Dear Friends,
“Are you going to be in the Kingdom of God?”
I had to laugh when the answer from my friend and brother in Christ was an unhesitant 'Yes!” It struck me funny because it is unusual to find people who would answer that question exactly like I would.
Perhaps it is our strong emphasis on Christ as the judge of the still future Kingdom of God on earth. Perhaps it is our emphasis on good works or the defiled flesh which we struggle with on a daily basis. Whatever be the case, many brethren have been left with the doubt that they will be in the Kingdom of God. They are sure that many people will be in the Kingdom, they are just not sure about themselves. This is very sad.
There are so many passages of Scripture that tell us we will be in the Kingdom of God that it would be impossible to list them all. However, if we really understand the Biblical teachings such as faith, justification, grace, imputed righteousness, fellowship, the Kingdom of God, etc.,, they scream to us that God through Christ has given us a place in His Kingdom. They tell us that we will be there despite our difficulties with the flesh if we truly believe.
Yes, there is an “if.” There is no guaranteed or unconditional salvation. We must believe and we must act on that belief. But the emphasis in the Bible is not on the “if”; it is on the free gift available to those who truly believe.
I think that one of our biggest problems in this area stems from the idea, however subtle, that we need to “earn” our way into the Kingdom. Even though intellectually, we all know that no one is going to earn salvation, we cannot rid ourselves of the thought. If we understood that Jesus died for us to be there and that he did this in spite of our fleshly ways, we could step back and take the Biblical perspective of salvation through faith and grace.
I'll let you all in on a dirty little secret I have been carrying around with me for years. I sin. I know you are surprised! As much as I try, I can't seem to completely beat it. I know that a lot of times I put on a pretty good front (and sometimes not!) when I am around you so that you might have been under the impression that I had this sin thing licked. Please keep it a secret….l don't want everyone to know.
We might laugh at a paragraph like the previous one, but it is exactly the way that we act sometimes. We treat sin like it is a classified document – if I told you about it I would have to kill you. We all do it and pretend like we don't. We forget the Bible tells us that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” We forget it tells us to “confess your faults one to another.” Somewhere we think the Bible says something like “keep your sins hidden. Put on your best face in front of your brethren and hope they don't find out.”
Everyone who enters the Kingdom (outside of Him who created the entrance!) will go in having known sin. This is not license to sin (i.e. we all do it, so what's the big deal). It is the acknowledgment that our personal righteousness is as filthy rags without the righteousness imputed from God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And the irony of it is that only when we humble ourselves in acknowledgment of our sinfulness and our complete dependence on Christ, can we say, as did the Apostle Paul, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
May the Lord Jesus come back this week and put to rest any doubts we may harbor about his saving power!
Have a great week!
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