Saturday: We Build the Church; We Receive the Kingdom
WEEK 52
SATURDAY
WE BUILD THE CHURCH; WE RECEIVE THE KINGDOM
Hebrews 12:25-29
Our last day will be a meditation upon the unshakable kingdom.
The wonder of it is that we don’t have to double our fists, knit our brows, and clench our teeth to attain this kingdom. We don’t have to attain it at all; we obtain it. “Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom” (Heb 12:28 RSV)—for receiving! We don’t have to be fit, to be worthy, to have enough to earn it; we simply have to receive the kingdom. It is prepared to invade us, to redemptively invade us, provided we take down the barriers! That’s all! That is the meaning of surrender; it means the taking down of the central barrier, the unsurrendered self. That is the real crux. Let go there, and everything goes with it. Then the kingdom possesses you.
We have missed the point when we talk of “building the kingdom.” Nowhere are we told in the New Testament to build the kingdom. The kingdom is built from the foundation of the world, built into the structure of reality. We build the church, but we receive the kingdom. Then we let its powers work in us and through us. We become agents of forces and powers not our own. We are transmitters of the grace of God. We love with a love not our own, rejoice with a joy not our own, and we have a mastery that is not ours; it is of Grace. And it is all effortless and compelling.
One night in Japan, I was on my way to speak to a large new church packed to the doors, largely by non-Christians. They belonged to a kingdom that had been shaken to the dust; now they wanted an unshakable kingdom. On the way at important intersections men stood in the dark, holding lighted Japanese lanterns with a cross upon each one. These men were waving the people toward the church. In this book I have stood like those sentinels in the dark, waving my candlelit-lantern with a cross on it—waving confused people toward the kingdom—the one unshakable kingdom in a shaken world. The cross is the way to that kingdom.
O Gracious Lord, you have shown us yourself in your Son, and you have shown us the kingdom in this New Society, and we will never, never get over the spell of it. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Mastered by the Master, I go out to master all things.