Holy Boldness

The world without God is always in a panic. When people resist God, He gives them over to their illusions, which makes things worse. God allows a growing pressure to force issues and expose lies. God remains in control of the overarching projection of history, while still giving people room to choose. All the while, underground, the governing influence of the Kingdom of God continues to advance. The God who created the earth continues to interface with it and supply its needs. Righteousness was sown into the creation from the beginning. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth reveals His handiwork.” (Rev. 19:1). The earth will never run out of resources! “As I live,” says the Lord, “the earth shall be filled with my glory.” (Numbers 14:21) But even more to the point, there are eternal purposes in God sown into us which are so much greater than food and clothing. “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” That’s a rhetorical question and the answer is self-evident. Of course it is. Jesus repeatedly taught and demonstrated that there was a higher rationale to life than mere survival. God’s Kingdom meant abundance for all who would embrace it. He poignantly declared that it was not something that was coming but already existed. By the Kingdom of God Jesus meant the observable expression of God’s will being done in the earth. Jesus lived it, taught it, and demonstrated it throughout His ministry. It was this demonstration of the Kingdom’s presence, in the here and now, in and through Him, that changed the way people saw current events and evaluated their future. And that presence of the Kingdom was more than food or clothing. It was meaning; it was purpose; it was significance; it was destiny, it was “ God with us .” Based on this reality, Jesus urged His followers to stop worrying about the necessities of life, and to start boldly pursuing the kingdom of God and life would take care of itself. “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” (v. 33) To seek first the kingdom of God, to always be about the father’s business, is the fear of the Lord in operation. Jesus summed up His teaching on the fear of the Lord with an exhortation to seek the kingdom of God before anything else. Seeking the kingdom of God means that one seeks the will of God. This was Jesus’ guiding philosophy. Jesus was not just speaking religious language. The Kingdom of God touches everything. Seeking the Kingdom of God is a governmental issue. It is something that encompasses all of life. This was core to who He was.

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