REAL (9):The Kingdom and the Church

Don't get caught up in where you meet with people (in a building or any place else) and share the Word of God, encouraging each other in the faith. That is not important. 

What is important that you do gather together!  I do go to "churches - buildings where a particular church meets - all the time to speak or be part of the gathering of the body of Christ. But I also know that if I don't go to "church" I am alright. God is not going to punish me because I have fellowship in many ways with other believers and in many different places.

I can tell you this from experience that if the church building was destroyed for some reason, a huge part of those people would not know what to do!  If something happened to "their pastor" they would not know what to do!  This is a real problem. Why?  Because these people do not understand what we are teaching. They are held captive to the traditions of man and they do not know how to hear God for themselves. It is interesting that the Prophet Amos spoke to this problem. 

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, that I will send a famine on the land. Not a famine of bread, nor of thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. Amos 8:11

The Church is dynamic. In time there is church only if we are gathered. Or better, the Body of Christ only manifest if we are together.

The Kingdom manifests Himself. The Kingdom is the eternal realm that manifests in time and in space. But before time and all creation was created and men made there was the Kinngdom. 

John the Baptist started preaching: Repent! 

You can't never understand the things of God if you don't change your way of thinking. That is what repent means indeed. You may be a Christian though has never changed the way you think according to the thoughts of God. Actually as we became Christians most of us if not all of us have gained some thinking that are only religious and contradictory to the Kingdom of God.

The Church of God is based in the expression "one another" Love one another, forgive one another, support one another, comfort one another and so on

The Kingdom of God is a commonwealth. There is no Kingdom of it is made of one ruler. We all are one but only if in Jesus, in Him.

We have to pull down the strongholds of selfish, independence and loneliness of the people.

In the Church and in the Kingdom of God there are no such things as I, Me, Myself, You, his/her, himself/herself. There is no Self!

Jesus said: if someone wants to follow me, you have to RENOUNCE, RESIGN YOURSELF. Do you know why? Because you will not be the only one following Him. There will be others and there is no way you can follow him alone.

The Kingdom of God is here means that the King is here. Jesus was born! The Kingdom was there because Jesus was there, present.

The kingdom is in your country,  because the King's Kings are in there, in US, etc. As ambassadors of God you are not merely representatives of God. You are the Kingdom. 

That is why Jesus said: if they receive you they receive Me. As those received Jesus they have received the One who sent Him.

God wants relationship with me but a relationship that is reflected in my relationship with others.

Church, again, means assembly, gathering not necessarily in the format of a worship service!

How can I be an assembly or a gathering by myself?

It is is the same thing as saying "I have the mind of Christ". No, I don't have the mind of Christ individually. The Church, the Body has the mind of Christ, not an individual. Only the Head has the mind of the Christ in His own, even so He shares His mind with us, the Body of Christ.

Once again, the Church of God is based in the expression "one another"! Love one another, forgive one another, support one another, comfort one another and so on.

Once again, the Kingdom of God is a commonwealth. There is no Kingdom if it is made of just a ruler. We are all one but only if in Jesus, in Him. That is why the King has made us kings. We are reigning with Him. Like Dr Paul Taylor once said: God did not make man to rule over other men. God did not make man male to rule over man female, in other words, He did not intended that man would rule over woman. God is God alone, but even Him became flesh, became men, so men - men and women who in Him are One as He is - shall reign with Him.

We have to pull down the strongholds of selfish, independence and loneliness on is and among the people.

Jesus said: if someone wants to follow me... It means you have to RENOUNCE, RESIGN YOURSELF. Do you know why? Because you will not be the only one following Him. There will be others and there is no way you can follow Him alone.

And Jesus did not die just to save us from sins. He died to restore to His priests and kings all things.

Josimar Salum & Paul Taylor