Living the Kingdom life

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Glory to God!

What a surprise! Two weeks ago our Kingdom Life family prepared a surprise party for pastor Richard's 50th birthday. He thought he was going to have a quiet dinner out with Frances and the Blairs when suddenly he found himself welcomed to a room, prepared, decorated and filled with our Kingdom Life family. Despite the extreme heat, many came to celebrate the occasion, enjoy good food and have a lot of fun together. Thanks to everyone who contributed and participated to bless and honour pastor Richard. It was a wonderful evening.

These past two weeks we have been looking at what it means to live the Kingdom life. In his message entitled, Transforming Love, Richard showed us from Romans 12:1,2 how our lives are transformed:

• as we receive revelation of the depth of God's mercy and love toward us (Eph 3:17-19)
• as we grow in our love for God and worship Him with our lives
• and as we renew our thinking and live according to God's thoughts and ways (Isaiah 55:6-8).

Using the example of a chameleon and a butterfly, Richard challenged us to see whether we live our christian lives superficially by trying to keep appearances, or putting a tick in a spiritual box or whether we are truly being transformed from within so that we become what God has created us to be in Christ. We noted that the kingdom of this world is not the Kingdom of God and that the believer must learn to live from the reality of God's Kingdom to "test and approve God's good, pleasing and perfect will."

Yesterday we heard wonderful testimonies of lives being saved, healed and transformed by God as people experienced His tangible presence and power on the streets of Frankfurt and at a youth camp. Hallelujah! We also saw a presentation of our mission team's trip to Butuan City in the Philippines that took place in July. It was very special to hear Katrin's testimony of how she experienced the Philippines for the first time and to hear about her first impressions of the people, Kingdom Life Butuan, the culture of the country and what God did during their visit. You can find out more about their trip here.

Continuing with the subject of living the Kingdom life, Richard spoke to us yesterday about Revealing God's Kingdom. We noted how Jesus always spoke about the Kingdom and how He used parables to help people understand the nature and purposes of God's Kingdom. This is what we saw:

• God's Kingdom is not the kingdom of this world. John 18:36; James 3:13-18
• A kingdom is ruled by a king and is made up of all that belongs to him and is subject to him.
• A kingdom is established as its subjects submit to their king and to his values, laws, customs and culture.
• The believer is rescued out of the kingdom of satan and placed under the rule and reign of Christ. Col 1:13; Eph 2:1-9
• Those who belong to God and His Kingdom reveal it with lives of faith, hope, love, worship, prayer, etc.
• Those who accept Christ as King demonstrate their love for Him and submission to His rule and reign by being obedient to Him. John 14:15; Rom 1:5
• Those who live the life of the Kingdom adopt the values, laws, customs and culture of God's Kingdom. Eph 4:17-32

The Lord is emphasising the difference between the kingdom of this world that is ruled by the "god of this age" or "the ruler of the kingdom of the air" and the Kingdom of God that is ruled by Christ, the King of kings. As we learn to live as those who belong to God and His Kingdom, obeying Jesus and adopting His thoughts and ways, God will establish and expand His Kingdom through us. Hallelujah!

Notices

29.08 - KLF Prayer Meeting at 19:30 at Leipziger Str.60
01.09 - Welcome Coffee from 15:00 - 17:00 at Leipziger Str.60
23.09 - 17:00 Special KLF Church Family meeting after regular church meeting

Submission for the mission

 

Image coutesy of bplanet at freedigitalphotos.net

Glory to God!

As we move towards Christ's return, we are seeing how God is aligning His people to His rule and reign and restoring His divine order in the Church (Eph 1:8-10). At the same time we are seeing the god of this age distorting the image of God as Creator, Father and Loving Authority and moving the world towards lawlessness and anarchy (2 Thess 2:7). On Sunday, Richard showed us how God is restoring His divine order in the Church as we looked at Hebrews 13:17,18 which reads,

"Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you."

In his message entitled "Restoring Godly Authority," which you can listen to here, Richard encouraged us to examine our hearts concerning our attitude towards authority and to understand God's purpose in placing authority in our lives. This is what he showed us:

• God calls us to obey imperfect leaders, whether they are governors, teachers, parents, bosses, pastors, etc. since there is no such thing as a perfect leader.
• Rather than asking who deserves to be obeyed, God challenges us to examine our heart attitude towards authority in general. Luke 10:25-37
• Our heart attitude toward authority in the natural is a reflection of our heart attitude in the spirit. 1 John 4:20,21
• To the degree we honour a leader's or someone's life we will be rewarded and will benefit from that person's life. Matthew 10:41
• We will not benefit from the anointing upon a leader's or a person's life if we are overfamiliar with, and do not honour that person. Mark 6:1-6
• Leaders are leaders because of their responsibility and not because they are perfect!
• We must keep the greater good in mind as we work with our leaders to get the job done. Matthew 4:19
• The purpose of submission to leadership is to serve the mission and to help the leader fulfill his or her responsibility with joy.
• We support our leaders by praying for them, helping them, encouraging them, thanking them, protecting them and honouring their responsibility.

You can read a more detailed explanation of these points here.

We praise God for the revelation of His realm and His order to bring us into the fullness of His Kingdom!

Upcoming Events

02.06 - KLF Church Prayer Meeting @ Leipziger Str. 60 

05.07 - Baptism Service @ Haeberlinstr.3
17-19.07 - Hearing from Heaven with Francois Botes and Alexander Blair