Kingdom, New Creation, & Church

I am currently reading Neil Carter's book "Christ in Y'all" and I was very impressed by this section:

Jesus said that the Good News was that the Kingdom of God had come. In fact, it seems he couldn't stop talking about the kingdom – only he never defined what that kingdom is. He kept telling stories, each one illustrating a different facet of kingdom life. He seemed determined to couch this great thing in mystery, never flly discolising what it would look like or how it would come. We are led in the end, to look to the epistles to discover what the kingdom of God signifies. What we find there, however, is that Paul exchanges the language of kingdom for that of new creation, He speaks of a coming age in which all things are reconciled to God. And somehow, this new world becomes available to us here and now by God's indwelling Spirit.

I believe this is the best definition of what it means to be in Christ's church I have ever read.

Beauty From Ashes

The Hebrew prophets spoke to a world spinning out of control and Israel was shrinking, surrounded on all sides by tyrannical powers, ad God seemed silent, hidden, even powerless. The prophets project forward in time to a period when God breaks his silence. in that day, they tell us, God will move forcefully to recreate heaven and earth. He will swallow up death and dry all tears. There will be no poverty, no hunger, no violence. A banquet feast will be spread for one and all. Then we will know God face to face, and all earth will serve him. - Philip Yancey "The Bible Jesus Read"

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
for the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted
and to proclaim that captives will be released
and prisoners will be freed.
He has sent me to tell those who mourn
that the time of the Lord’s favor has come,
and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.
To all who mourn in Israel,
he will give a crown of beauty for ashes,
a joyous blessing instead of mourning,
festive praise instead of despair.
In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks
that the Lord has planted for his own glory.
Isaiah 61:1-3

I really have nothing more to say than "Come Lord Jesus Come!"

Some Great Quotes

I know it has been over a month since I last wrote anything, and I am not writing anything new today either. But I heard a few GREAT quotes today that I wanted to share.

For those of us who still have the audacity to call ourselves Christians with all the social misery and unjustified suffering and unmerited grief in the world; to still say that that cross has a meaning takes a tremendous leap of faith and you don't have to read Kikergard to make that leap - Dr. Cornell West at Eastern - http://kbow.us/UrL1

But the unconditional love is inseparable from justice... because the connection between love and justice is so tight that justice in part is what love looks like in public. Because when you really love folk no matter who and what they are, you hate the fact that they are being treated unfairly, you loathe the fact they're being treated unjustly, you gotta do something about it. It flows out of ya. There's so much care comin out of your heart and mind and soul you can't stay still. - Dr. Cornell West at Eastern - http://kbow.us/UrL1

We are cruel to ourselves when we try to live in this world without knowing the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place for those who do not know about God. - Kay Warren "You Are What You Believe" April 15, 2009 http://kbow.us/6pvL

It is hard to conceive a God worthy of worship who does not condemn the killing of innocent persons. Dr. Cornell West -http://kbow.us/UrL1

I am socializing two homo-sapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in order that they might become the instruments for the social order into the kind of eschatalogical kind of utopia that God willed from the beginning of creation - Tony Campolo's quoting his wife (http://kbow.us/9OT0)

This consumerism creates a deadness, and the youth are dead - Tony Campolo (http://kbow.us/kqoP)

The words of the apostle Paul who says with great relevance, to the youth of this generation, "Come ye out from among them and be separate sayeth the Lord. I beseech you therefore brothers and sisters by the mercies of God don't be conformed to this democratic capitalistic system, but be transformed by the Spirit of God. And live out a life that is representative of Jesus and the scriptures not the life being prescribed by the media. - Tony Campolo (http://kbow.us/74Wn)