James Robison A Weekly Commentary
Jesus came preaching the Gospel of God saying, “The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel!” 1
Even after 50 years on my journey with Christ, I am continually living in an atmosphere of amazing grace. God seems so anxious to reveal more about Himself to everyone desiring to know Him more fully. In my pursuit of God, I am amazed at how faithfully He pursues me and the intimate fellowship He desires to have with each one of us. As I draw near to Him, He draws near to me. When I ask Him to share what is on His heart, He makes it evident that I am on His heart – and so are you. It is amazing know such a mighty God cares so deeply about us as individuals, however undeserving one may feel.
God’s love for every one of us is demonstrated by the fact our shepherd, while having 99 precious sheep safely in the shelter and security of the fold, is out diligently looking for the one lost sheep. This not only applies to those unbelievers He is seeking to save, but to all believers. Not only, “Oh what love that He would die for me,” but that He searches for me. We are invited to seek Him with all of our heart while all the time He is also looking for us.
Recently, He let me know He loves to talk to me because He knows I love to hear His voice. I am personally convinced we can have a conversational relationship with our Father revealed through Jesus our Shepherd, who taught, “My sheep know my voice.” When we seek to know His written Word and study to show ourselves approved unto God, we will be able to hear the God of the Word speaking conversationally with us. What He says will never contradict what is written. His Words will always be consistent with biblical truth and the true character of His heart.
In recent months God has begun to reveal to me that most believers, myself included, have failed to understand the importance of the Gospel of the Kingdom. The power and life that is to be experienced now, not just in the future heaven. While searching the Word, reading the insights of other seekers and scholars, God has communicated some truths I can comprehend and share.
This week as I prayed, He revealed a measure of understanding related to Kingdom reality that I’m very excited about. His Kingdom presence and power in the spiritual realm is what gravity is in the natural. It is the force, the power, the law, the presence, literally the weight that can hold everything properly in place – grounded, secure, and safe. The law of gravity keeps everything on planet Earth from floating out of control and meaninglessly in some sense of outer space. The power, influence and weight of God’s Kingdom recognized as at hand and received as present reality will hold our lives properly together continually conforming us to His image. It is not by our efforts or rule- keeping, but by His grace working His character into us.
It is His power that can fit all of the members of His body rightly in place joint-to-joint to be built up fully as an expression of His very life on earth. It is this Kingdom power that enables the members of His body, with all their uniqueness, distinctiveness and differences, to be properly aligned so that we, as His body, truly reveal Him for who He is. This is the church learning to fulfill its purpose in Kingdom reality.
Just as with the influence of gravity, when we respond properly to our Father, we live under control (His control) rather than out of control or in bondage to the influences of a deceived world in rebellion against Kingdom order. The spiritual gravity of the Kingdom holds us in the center of God’s will enabling us to be “rooted and grounded in love.” It is the weight of His presence that makes the necessary imprint on our lives and personality necessary to reveal His character, love and divine nature. This is the power Paul referred to when he said, “We are changed from glory to glory.” 2 This is truly the Kingdom imprint, weight and its effect on our lives.
The glory of God definitely has weight. As my friend Dr. Tony Evans says, “When you say that dude is ‘heavy’, we’re giving significance to it. We’re adding weight to his person in that reference.” That’s what God’s glory is – holy weight!
In His letter to the Colossian believers, Paul declared,“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and He holds all creation together.” 3
Dr. Evans also shares,“If you adopt God’s Kingdom reality, Christ will bring the things together in your life that are falling apart. He will either fix the situation, fix you IN the situation, or fix you IN SPITE OF the situation!”
This is the transforming power of the Kingdom. It is not organized power or influence; it is the manifestation of Christ first to us and then through us to a world desperately looking for hope. Remember, it is “Christ in us the hope of glory.” We have been invited by the King Himself, the Good Shepherd and our Father in heaven to live continually under the influence of His supernatural power. Being aware of this present spiritual reality and receiving the imprint and impact of God’s glory in our lives is as essential to meaningful spiritual life as oxygen is to our lungs and physical life. His Kingdom power is just as available as the air we breathe.
It is time to repent and believe the Gospel – the Good News of His Kingdom NOW! We no longer need to wait for His Kingdom since Jesus said, “It is at hand.” We need to yield to the weight of His Kingdom presence and power now. God is truly anxious to make more than an impression on us. He wants to make an imprint on our lives which reveals His holy character in us in order for us to make an eternal impact on everything around us.
With this recent awareness of the Kingdom as spiritual gravity, I have been able to look back over my life and see those times when I was truly transformed. Without question, it was the weight, the imprint and the influence of God’s glory at that moment in my life that had such a profound and lasting effect. It was something that I not only experienced, but that everyone around me could bear witness of. This is what I am convinced you can discover as you look back over your own life’s journey. While thanking God for all He has and will accomplish in our personal lives, we must pray for others.
It is obvious that many national and world leaders are clueless (lacking wisdom from above) because much of the church has been clueless concerning God’s Kingdom purpose. Those who have been born from above (into God’s Kingdom) must desire to make an impact and leave an imprint on local, national, and social issues – actually helping reshape the culture. As I have shared previously, it is not the organizing of some earthly power base that is so greatly needed, but the release of the power, the weight of His glory and grace, that affects every base of power and influence on this planet. “’Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord.” 4
It’s the power of His Kingdom that is so essential at this moment in human history. I am impressed to keep reemphasizing the simple definition of life in the Kingdom with the phrase God put on my heart: IT IS LIVING IN HIS PRESENCE IN THE PRESENT.
I close with this prayer:
“That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”5
1 Mark 1:14-15
2 2 Corinthians 3:18
3 Colossians 1:15-17
4 Zechariah 4:6
5 Ephesians 3:16-21
