Focus your vision to foster transformation

VIM (Vision-Intention-Means): VISION OF LIFE IN THE KINGDOM - This vision of the kingdom is where Jesus started and where we must also start. He came announcing, manifesting, and teaching the availability and nature of the kingdom of the heavens. “For I was sent for this purpose,” he said (Luke 4:43). 

The kingdom of God is the range of God’s effective will, where what God wants done is done.[1] Earth and its immediate surroundings seem to be the only place in creation where God permits his will to not be done. Therefore we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10, KJV) and hope for the time when that kingdom will be completely fulfilled even here on earth, where, in fact, it is already present (see Luke 17:21) and available to those who seek it with all their heart (see Matthew 6:33; 11:12; Luke 16:16). 

For those who seek it, it is true even now that all things work together for their good and that nothing can cut them off from God’s inseparable love and effective care (see Romans 8:28,35-39). The vision that underlies spiritual transformation into Christlikeness is, then, the vision of life now and forever in the range of God’s effective will, that is, partaking of the divine nature through a birth “from above” and participating by our actions in what God is doing now in our lifetime on earth (see 2 Peter 1:4, 1 John 3:1-2). 

Therefore, we can say, “Whatever we do, speaking or acting, we do all on behalf of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father” (Colossians 3:17, PAR). In everything we do, we are permitted to do his work. What we are aiming for in this vision is to live fully in the kingdom of God, as fully as possible now and here, not just hereafter.

 


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