Dear Editor,
Sometimes I wonder if the Christian has misunderstood the message about Gods Kingdom. We seem to be fighting the wrong fight not the good fight. We are missing the commission from our King to go and make disciples.
It seems to me that we have fallen to the level of fighting against the world and its ways. This is not the good fight. We have been called to overcome the world not stoop to its level and wrestle in the muck and mire with it.
The world, as described in the Scripture, is a falling and fading kingdom that is going to be destroyed. We have not been called to save the world. We are not trying to transform this world into the Kingdom of God.
The message from Scripture explains to us that there are two separate kingdoms of people residing within the world system that we see. One of these kingdoms follows Satan and has been deceived, confused and blinded by its leader to escalate the way of destruction.
The other Kingdom is lorded over by Jesus the King of all kings. This Kingdom is the Kingdom of God. It is a mysterious Kingdom. It is alive in the hearts of those who have been saved from the fallen world system and have come to see the reality of Gods Kingdom through a new spiritual birth.
The residents of the Kingdom of God are foreigners, aliens and strangers in kingdom of this world. We are here, not to fight against the world kingdom but to tell people about the Kingdom of God and how they can enter into this new Kingdom through the sacrificial offer the King has made for them.
The King is willing to forgive their rebellion of ignorance if they will voluntarily submit to His rule and reign over their life. He will erase their past acts of rebellion and begin a new work in their life to make them right with Himself via a new Spirit. This new Spirit allows a person to love one another, have joy, peace and patience with those around him or her. It imparts kindness, goodness and gentleness into the recipient. It also births an ability to control ones self in a highly stressful world.
This new Kingdom is going to be saved out of this world in the end. See, the world is on a path to destruction and that is not going to be stopped by a bunch of Christin moralists fighting against it. This is the reality of the Scripture.
So, what we have been called to do is to go into the entire world and draw others into the Kingdom of God that will be saved.
The Good Fight reaches people with Gods love and a message of salvation into a new Kingdom ruled by a King that desires to save us from the world not destroy us with the world.
The world is condemned already. Our job, as commissioned soldiers, is to rescue the prisoners not fight a world system that can’t be saved.
Pastor Thomas R. Swain
First Church of God
Great Bend