(*) 12 Thoughts on The Kingdome of Heaven

Thought 1: Matthew 13:44 – Kingdom of Heaven is like hidden treasure.  A man found it and hid it again.  Then he sold everything he had and bought the field.
      What I've Learned to the above parable:
   Layer 1: why would the Kingdom of Heaven be something one can purchase?  Is it greed driven or true-love driven?
   Layer 2: giving up everything to acquire possession more abundant than one can earn… There is an uncontrollable, deep, visceral response when we encounter a great treasure.  It drives us to behave oddly and above rationality.  It grabs our faculties.
   Layer 3: When we find an immense treasure like the Kingdom of Heaven, it should trigger an uncontrollable visceral response to acquire it at all cost.

Boasting (said or unsaid) = number keeping, record keeping, accomplishments, achievements, titles, people pleasers, insecurities

Thought 2: Jesus uses parables to sieve out the genuine seekers from chaff, the imposters. 
   What I've Learned: If we don’t seek deeper wisdom and just merely rely on what is obvious, then we are actually missing the message.

Thought 3: Parable of the sower:

1.      Seed = Word of God = Scripture = Christ
2.      Soil = Condition and readiness of heart to grow the ‘seed’
      What I've Learned:
1.      Do not be ready to assume the quality of my own soil!
2.      Thorns = anything that distracts us from God.  We simplify life by removing thorns.  We accumulate piles and piles of thorns.  God is the sunlight.  Thorns cover the soil and seeds from getting the nutrition of God’s light.  Periodically, God’s fire is necessary to burn off all the thorns to turn them into fertilizers for our soil, so the seeds can grow.

Thought 4: Are we trying to be just good enough or simply meeting our own expectations?  We assume that we know who God is to us… we do what we think He would want us to do, but we always fail!  On one hand, we strive for our idea of what it means to be God’s child, on the other hand, we know that the best we can give God is like ‘filthy rags.’  So, why are we trying?  
      What I've Learned: God did everything for us already, why are we still trying to reach God or to please God?  He put Himself among us… Emmanuel.  I don’t know why, but He did.  So, how should we behave if everything is already done, we can’t do anything or add anything!  I think ALL we need to do is to recognize His presence, invite Him in, cling to Him, let His will be our will, and let us go wherever He goes… (simply, it is not about what you do or say for God or not for God)

Thought 5: Isaiah 29:13 “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  Their worship of me is made up of only rules taught by men.”
      What I've Learned: This verse pierces through ‘religion.’  Religion is a made up set of rules, used by men to control men.  All religion is the same, dead.  A genuine God-follower, although doesn’t live contrary to these rules, abandons the rules and approaches God as reality, fully expresses all humanity married with the presence of God.  This is expressed in perfection through Jesus the Messiah. 

Thought 6: Do you want to be saved from your sins or just the penalty of your sins?  Sin = reality without God.  Penalty of sin = eternity without God. 
   What I've Learned: Why would one want to be with God for eternity if they don’t want God in the first place?  Why do all religions attract us to live a perfect life in ‘heaven’ without God?  And why would there be various levels of perfection in many ‘tiers of heaven’?  Many levels of perfection really mean no perfection at all… interesting!  Perfection is One.  God is One.

Thought 7: This Sunday in church, I heard a sermon on the topic of Deo Volente, or, God’s Will, in James 4.  “If the LORD wills, then we shall live and do this or that.”  Boasting or planning anything apart from God is evil!  “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, sins.” 
      What I've Learned: We typically think that if we know what is right and don’t do it, then we sin.  This expends ‘sin’ from ‘reality without God’ to everything we don’t do right!  NO, this is not what it means!  Read it in context.  It really means that if we make plans apart from God’s Will, it is sin!  This interpretation is consistent with the definition of ‘sin’ as ‘reality without God.’  Anything without God is ‘sin,’ thus, planning without God is sin also.

Thought 8: The first and greatest commandment: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” – Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27.  The second greatest commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
      What I've Learned: If we are to model after God’s love, our love should also be unconditional.  We love regardless if the other satisfies our criteria.  We love God first, then others second.  Neighbors, often time they are friends and foes.  So, we are to love our friends and our enemies alike!  Wow, how it confronts our limits!  Does love exclude or embrace?  Righteousness and justice as balanced by love and grace.  Love and grace win!  Our righteousness and justice should come as second place to our love and grace… as modeled by Christ.  We are failures, but Christ embraces us and brings us into His family regardless that we are so wrong in His eyes.

Thought 9: CS Lewis said “It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”
      What I've Learned: We can tell a person’s destination by how they invest themselves on Earth.  Jesus the Messiah is always among the poor/oppressed/sick/broken/sinners… If we want to be Jesus’ follower, we should be there too, regardless of our wealth. He can use everyone.  The wealth He gives us, gives us greater responsibility.  If we don’t invest in eternity, that’s how we become ‘ineffective.’  To fight ineffectiveness is to invest in eternity.  Eternity is where Jesus is, so do what He did when He was here.  That’s how we become effective, and this is how the world is going to see Jesus.

Thought 10: Isaiah 58 – “This is the kind of fasting I have chosen: to lose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke”
      What I've Learned: The fast that God has taken is also what Jesus the Messiah look like when He was here.  The fast is not to check off a list of things to do.  It is not for self-righteousness or self-glorification.  It is for God!  It is to set the oppressed free!  We cannot fast to God and then turn around to oppress another or to do nothing when we know others are oppressed!  That is essentially what a hypocrite does!  God said hypocrites are lukewarm and He will spit them out of His mouth!

Thought 11: We structure our lives so we don’t have to live by faith.  We are well stocked.  We store up for our future.  So, when something unexpected happens, we question God and we give up our trust in Him. 
      What I've Learned: Wow.  That’s me.  I keep thinking about how to get rid of loans, how to buy investments and insurance.  I am the rich person who’s building more barns for storage.  God would say to me “what a fool, this very night your life will be taken from you…”  Oh God, forgive me, what should I do next?

Thought 12: We equate our partially sanitized lives with holiness.  We daily wash clean the outside of ourselves, but our insides are like the flower vase on the shelf, it is full of dirt and uncleanliness. 
      What I've Learned: We wash up on the outside, do all the right rituals, read God’s Word, pray, give our monies, and go to religious services…  But, all that ‘holiness’ is just like cleaning the outside of our container.  However, on the inside, it is filthy.  It never gets cleaned.  It just accumulates spider webs and dirt.  We don’t go through our lives and take the time to dig into the deepest and darkest corners of our insides to ask God to come in and purify and to wash our dirt away.  We don’t let God turn us upside down, scrub us inside out, and bleach us with the redemption of His blood. 

My Prayer:
God I realized that I am a sinner in every way.  I am broken.  I am being broken.  You have blessed me, yet, I have been storing up the wealth instead of being generous.  I call myself follower of Jesus, but I don’t act like Jesus the Messiah.  Please help me to worship You with my heart not by following rules created by men.  Help me to seek Your will first in everything, and never make plans apart from You.  Help me to not just talk about doing Your will, but to actually ‘do’ Your will.  Help me to Love You first, above all else, then to love others, especially my enemies.  Help me not to store up wealth, but do as you commanded, to share the wealth you have given to me, especially to those who cannot pay me back.  Help me God, to take on the ‘fasting’ that you have chosen for Yourself, to break the chains of injustices and to set the oppressed free.  Help me to not judge others, but to love them.  Help me not to ‘fast’ or do things for self-righteousness or self-glorification.  God, please send your holy fire to burn up all the thorns in my life, to turn distraction into fertilizers for my soil.  God, help me to give me opportunity to prepare my soil for your seed to grow and make me a better cultivator of my soil and other soils around me.  God, please turn my vessel inside out, scrub me clean on the inside, and bleach me with your blood.  God, I now understand this struggle and unease as the work of your scrub brush within my soul.  I also take comfort that sufferings and trials are the evidence of your holy fire burning through me to rid impurities and create fertilizer for my heart to grow deeper roots in You.  God, prepare me to receive from You and to receive You.  It is such a mystery that, though You are completely capable to do everything on Your own, that You desire us to experience You and have chosen me to come along side and participate in what You are doing in this world.  Thank You for Your everlasting love.  I am at peace now in the refuge of your overwhelming embrace.