Kingdom of God

Do you want to be in the Kingdom of God?

Cactus Flower

Some people are very sure that God is so loving that there is no exclusion in the Kingdom. It is a choice of the individual but if the information they are getting is inclusive without basis then this should be identified. God is God, the I AM. Our opinions if they do not agree with God’s should be revised to make sure that any who want to be in the Kingdom of God are included.

   

Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of God

Walvoord puts forward that there is a distinction between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven seems to refer to men alone and to include some who are merely professing Christians. It is likened to a field where a farmer sowed the wheat and his enemy sowed the weeds. The wheat and the weeds grow together until the harvest. Then the weeds will be bundled and burned and the wheat will be gathered into the barn (Matt. 13:24-29). There is a mixture of earthly and spiritual dimensions. In the New Testament, the kingdom of God only speaks of a spiritual realm and does not include the unsaved. 

This differentiation does not explain the parable of the Mustard Seed, in Matthew (13:31-32) it is the kingdom of heaven and in Mark it is the kingdom of God (4:30-32). The kingdom of God is according to John Piper is “God’s reign — his sovereign action in the world to redeem and deliver a people and then at a future time finish it and renew his people and the universe completely”. 

As this is such a huge subject this post will be based on the words of Jesus, “but now My kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). It is unobtainable through human activity and intervention.

How can someone get into the Kingdom of God?

Jesus said no-one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again or from above (Jn 3:3). And no-one has been there except the one who came from there, the Son of Man, Jesus himself (Jn 3:13). Jesus said that He is the way the truth and the life, no-one can go to the Father except through Him (Jn 14:6) and that He and the Father are one (Jn 14:11).

Who is eligible to get into the Kingdom of God?

Righteousness, repentance and believing the Good News (Mt 21:31-32; Mk 1:15; Acts 8:12, 10:34-43) and to follow Jesus (Mk 10:21) as He is the way. Once believed there is no looking back (Lk 9:62).

Who will not be eligible to be in the Kingdom of God?

There are lists of people who will not be allowed into the Kingdom of God and serve as warnings: wrongdoers, sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards; slanderers nor swindlers (1 Cor 6:9-10); flesh and blood (1 Cor 15:50); acts of the flesh, sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies (Gal 5:19-21); no immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God (Eph 5:5).

We are human and the list of ineligibility is long

The Bible also gives us relief as it says, “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11). Flee from sexual immorality, as our born of above bodies, are temples of the Holy Spirit, we are to honour God with our bodies (1 Cor 6:18-20). We can concentrate on are positives, the fruits of the Spirit which are not against the law (Gal 5:22-25). Christians can be assured of salvation (Rom 10:9-10) but it is also our responsibility to stay holy because God is holy (1 Pet 1 13-16). Jesus doesn’t condemn us, but He does forgive and say “Go and sin no more” (Jn 8:11).

The Bible is very clear what is acceptable and unacceptable to the Kingdom of God. It is up to the individual to make themselves suitable according to the doctrines regarding salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Christian Preachers and Pastors should feel that they are able to warn of ineligibility and encourage eligibility. If someone wants to be included they should have no doubt about what is required. We cannot gauge someone's standard on our own, whether holy or not, we gauge it on Jesus Christ who is perfect.

Merry Christmas

Transgender Agenda

If the Transgender agenda was passive there would not be a problem but it is aggressive. There is one thing of asserting rights for Transgenders: calling a person by the name they wish to be called; having empathy for babies born with atypical physical sex characteristics. There is the other that takes a child’s reality and experimentation with the world around and draws the only conclusion that the child has gender dysphoria. This child must be treated as the gender of choosing and be in line for hormone treatment and surgery following. Also that the parents only path is to support their child without question. 

Michelle Cretella, M.D., a leading paediatrician in the USA who is “dedicated to the health and well-being of children” wrote an article “I’m a Pediatrician. Here’s What I Did When a Little Boy Patient Said He Was a Girl”. She found that the little boy in question wanted to be a girl because he misread his parents attention to his disabled little sister. He thought that they only loved girls. The motive for wanting to be a girl was uncovered and the parents responded to their child’s need not the child’s assessment of how to gain his parent’s love. Cretella concludes in her article

“To indoctrinate all children from preschool forward with the lie that they could be trapped in the wrong body disrupts the very foundation of a child’s reality testing. If they can’t trust the reality of their physical bodies, who or what can they trust? Transgender ideology in schools is psychological abuse that often leads to chemical castration, sterilization, and surgical mutilation” 

Safe Schools in Victoria state:

• ·    Schools must support and respect a student's choice to identify as their desired gender when this does not align with their designated sex at birth
• ·    toilet and change room facilities are given careful consideration to the use of facilities that are appropriate to the student's preferred or chosen gender noting that to use the unisex disability toilet would be inappropriately drawing attention to the student.
• ·    the student wishing to change their gender identity does not have to consult their parents or medical practitioners.·         

Australian law is blocking safety mechanisms that would curtail teenagers with gender dysphoria wanting to physically and surgically change genders. Jane Lee reported that these teenagers will no longer have to apply to a judge to undergo hormone therapy, following a ruling by the Family Court. The NSW Minister for Family and Community Services, Pru Goward's statement, "I have great misgivings in the treatment of gender dysphoria in children and young people and feel we need to be very careful in the way this is managed."

Amanda Presigiacomo in her article, "Gender Expert Says Teens Are Trying To Be Transgender Because It's Cool" writes that Dr Stephen Stathis, a gender expert and psychiatrist warns that there is an over diagnoses of trans youths. It is now trendy and a way to gain attention – the new black. Most will outgrow their transgender confusion but the transgender push for all its good intentions is creating new victims.

The child/student, a minor that cannot buy alcohol, drive or vote can dictate to adults the course that will affect their entire life. The responsible adults in this child’s life are being tied by law to acquiesce to the child’s wishes and a large percentage of children with gender dysphoria do grow out of the confusion. There is so much information about the risks involved for treating a child with gender dysphoria with treatments and surgery, but they are being overlooked, ridiculed, outlawed because of an agenda and this is what is very disconcerting. 

The Transgender agenda is political in nature motivated by emotional knee jerk band aid treatment. It is not open to checks and balances that will protect the children that do not need treatment from irreversible psychological and physical damage.

Henri Nouwen (1932-1936). 

Henri Nouwen was a Roman Catholic Priest, whose writings inspire people to trust God make space for God to act in our lives in surprising ways. The Henri Nouwen Society has a fabulous display of his life, teachings and legacy.

Nouwen wrote it in his private journals and conversations that are now subjects of biographies about his sexuality that he was same sex attracted which he did not make public in his lifetime. He is now dead and does not have right of reply. He is being used as a "Christian" gay icon. Two paintings were done during his lifetime by a Franciscan brother and Friar Robert Lentz, who had a reputation for painting LGBTQ icons. One was commissioned by Nouwen of him offering up his sexuality and devotion to Christ. This is from an article titled Henri Nouwen by a "Christian" lesbian Kittredge Cherry who has claimed Nouwen as a LGBT Saint. At the time of this blog there is one comment attached to this article, only one, and it discredits him, accusing him of a crime. Cherry also included that there is no evidence that he ever broke his vow of celibacy, yet this very condemning comment was allowed to be published without qualification. 

He didn’t write that he was a non-practicing homosexual he wrote about celibacy. He was human and likely was surrounded and lived with male clergy, these feelings may have been confused with love and respect and sexuality. I am not alone in being concerned that to be a priest you have to be celibate, as devout Roman Catholics have advocated publicly for priests to marry without success. The paintings of Nouwen are about celibacy as befitting to a Roman Catholic Priest. 

Should Henri Nouwen expect or want to be used as a gay icon with his life and legacy rewritten to suit a homosexual agenda? Would Henri Nouwen like to know that he has been used in this agenda and that it has caused a schism in the church?