“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” Martin Luther King Jr.
I love to watch children play together before they manifest selfishness, racism, and a host of other fallen world personality reflections. It’s seems to be a little taste of the God’s future Kingdom manifesting in the now. It’s a short window, but it seems to exist. Behind the glass is a little taste of heaven. All you have to do is go to a hospital and observe the babies behind the glass of the nursery. Grown adults from every culture and race can be seen looking through the glass at a community of babies that have yet to learn the voice of a fallen world.
In other words, we learn the language of this fallen world once when come out from behind the glass. I’m not here to debate if we are born this way or learn our fallenness. I’m sure it’s a combination of both. We are born sinners, and we learn to sin pretty well. But what if there is another language to learn? What if there is another community to be part of?
The answer to both questions is, there is! It’s called the Kingdom of God. It is God’s rule and reign in the here and now. The resurrection has brought the future forward. Christ Followers have another language and community that we are part of. We know there is another Identity that was stamped on us when we gave our life to Christ. When we were born again into God’s Kingdom, we were called to a Kingdom way of loving and living among the outside others. We were given a new language of love to learn It’s a community that seeks to live how it will one day fully be when God sets all things right at His coming. Part of that the future is leaking into the present through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The Kingdom of God is about unlearning our old stamped identity and learning a new way of being human. The bible ends with a multitude of people and a calm sea of humanity living and worshiping God in their glorified bodies in a world that has finally been put to right forever. As Christ Followers, We have been called to reflect God’s future Community among the lost of the world. We are God’s love language to the world. We are God’s community that is setting things right. We are God’s temple. Now go live like it.
“Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God’s new Temple. They are, individually and corporately, places where heaven and earth meet.”
― N.T. Wright,
Adapted from author Steve Wrights, 1/21/13, at http://stevewright.info/2013/01/21/behind-the-glass/