Stupid again

Some of the people that I made the "Stupid" blog entry returned to haunt me. I thought the deal was over.

Here's what they say: anything Jesus said about the Kingdom of heaven/God was only about the afterlife. What? Are you serious? I looked this morning, and found TWENTY-ONE references to the Kingdom refering to this life IN THE BOOK OF MATTHEW ALONE. The other new Testament authors have the same understanding. Read Luke/Acts (origonally a two-volume work). Luke especially understood that Jesus idea of the kingdom and of life was about the outcasts. Jesus went to those that you "aren't supposed to." He went to the lepers (those suffering from contagious disease that people feared and hated. Anyone thinking AIDS?), the tax collectors (corrupted Jews collaborating with the enemy to steal from their own people), prostitutes (yeah...), women (outcasts of all societies of the time), children (same), Gentiles (that other race, whether it be white, black, hispanic, asian, etc.), the disabled (which in that day were considered cursed by God).

Jesus didn't say, "I'll stay here and let them come to me." He WENT to THEM. His idea of the kingdom was that his followers would go to the poor and the outcast. He sought them out. He looked for ways to help them. Go to biblegateway.com sometime and search for the Kingdom. Jesus said constantly "The kingdom of heaven is like..." and he talked about a Kingdom that seemed small and insignificant, but spread everywhere.

Here this, no matter your perference of the kingdom of this world (Obamacrat, Blue Dog, GOP, Tea Party, etc.) it is still flawed. Maybe God's kingdom is flawed here too, but we have seen the Perfect, and strive to achieve the example He set. If your loyalty is to any version of the kingdom of this world, you will still learn that it is temporary and flawed. At the end of things, it will "burn up like chaff." That isn't a threat. It is a "poof and it's gone" type of thing. You can argue, you can plead, it doesn't matter. So you can either strive for the world, or you can bring the Kingdom down to the world. Your choice, but I advise the latter.