January 20, 2025

The Kingdom Of Heaven Is At Hand

How is the one sitting on the throne of your life doing? How is that government working for you?

If you’re weary of unjust, oppressive, and ineffective government, and are yearning for a better homeland—a government of righteousness, with the peace, harmony, and wellness that results—the good news is “the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.

My previous king constantly led me to death and disappointment. He was corrupt and an unwitting vassal of another kingdom.

I’m referring to my former self.

But now, I couldn’t be more pleased with Jesus, my Savior and King.

He leads me well.

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”
– 2 Corinthians 2:14

The triumph He always leads us to is experiencing the kingdom of God more.

I commend Him to you.

Denounce your government, and defect to Christ: Repent.

Know this: it’s not easy. It is the hardest thing you will ever do.

Defection will make you an enemy of the state. It costs everything, but His kingdom is unquestionably worth it.

September 8, 2023

Overthrow Idols

We are cruel, oppressive, incompetent rulers on the throne of our lives (we are cruel and oppressive because of our incompetence).

A heart ready for heaven knows this, vacates the throne, offers it to Jesus because it sees He alone is qualified and it violently overthrows anything that even suggests to take His rightful place.

“You are not [oppressed] by us (Christ’s ambassadors), but you are [oppressed] by your own affections.”
—2 Corinthians 6:12

I can’t help but think about the thief on the cross who initially mocked Jesus but was eventually emptied. The Holy Spirit brought him to a place of recognizing that he justly deserved his condemnation as a rebel against the State and recognized that Jesus was rightful King of a Kingdom where he wanted to be,

“Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” —Luke 23:42

“And Jesus said to him, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.’” —Luke 23:43

That is ALL that is required to be saved, for the Holy Spirit to open my eyes, to bring me to a place where I confess my rebellion against God and my need for Jesus, God’s Christ, the blessed and only Potentate, who alone can reconcile me to God and restore God’s wonderful kingdom order to my life and all of creation.

I believe God timed Christ’s incarnation when He did because the Romans had it right. That’s how sin should be treated: as rebellion against the Kingdom, it should be violently confronted, purged, exposed, humiliated and killed without mercy.

That’s how I should have been treated as an enemy of God’s perfect order. But, God. Thanks be to God for Jesus who not only came to restore that kingdom order but served my sentence, paid the required penalty (in order for God to be just) and took my place on that cross so that I could be with God! He didn’t have to do that. He could have just re-established His perfect order without me, but He chose to save me at an exorbitant expense that I was not worthy of. Thank you, God.

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” —2 Corinthians 5:21

Now, that I, with great joy, accept Jesus as King, I should treat sin the same way the Romans treated rebels. I’ve been far too gentle with such an insidious and deadly threat to my life, the lives of everyone around me and even the order of creation.

I repent.

It’s past time to cut off hands and gouge out eyes (Matthew 18:8-9). I need to be violent with my sin and overthrow every threat to Jesus’ rule, He who is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

June 12, 2023

What Only Jesus Can Offer

Jesus offers what no one else offers: to know God.

Whereas others talked *about* God, Jesus wanted us to *know* God.

“In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.”
—Matthew 6:9
https://bible.com/bible/114/mat.6.9.NKJV

Whereas others taught theology and discussed God academically, Jesus spoke with authority from a place of personally knowing God.

“Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word.”
—John 8:55
https://bible.com/bible/114/jhn.8.55.NKJV

Jesus spoke from experience. He is intimately familiar with God’s goodness, His love and His power. He’s been with God as He rules perfectly in wisdom, justice and righteousness.

This is why Jesus talked the way He did saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”

The gospel, the good news of Jesus is that we can know God and we can be with Him TODAY.

“The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Because the King has come.

God is not an idea. He is a person that can be known by those whom He chooses to reveal Himself to.

The good news is that He has chosen to reveal Himself to the world through Jesus Christ.

Jesus alone can move us from an intellectual idea about God, to a real relationship with God both here and now, and in ways we cannot imagine in the life to come.

Believe Jesus and know God and be with God, now. #gospel

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.

And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.

“Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?”

Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
—John 14:21-23

June 6, 2023

Am I A Good Person?

People around me may applaud and praise me as being a “good” person, but am I? What does Jesus say?

You know, the hungry, the thirsty, those I do not know, the naked, the sick, those who are in prison? The people whom the Father wants to be safe and sound in His kingdom as sons and daughters, treated just as though they were His beloved Son because they are His kindred, they ARE His flesh and blood –what does *that* Jesus say about me?

Do I deal with them on the basis of how they can or cannot advance my interests?

Or, will I deal with them on the basis of having an intense intolerance for the incongruity of insufficiency, illness and imprisonment with God’s kingdom and act with a sincere desire to bring their circumstances in-line with His intent?

That’s what Jesus did, after all.

How I engage the inconvenient and disinherited is a more accurate reflection of who I am and whether I ever knew Jesus than praise from other self-promoting people who I trade favors among.

“Then He also said to him who invited Him, ‘When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid.

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.

And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.'”
—Luke 14:12-14

I have failed this test many times.

I repent.

Love seeks to remedy the inconsistencies between God’s heart and what’s happening, with whomever it’s happening, everywhere it’s happening.

“[Love] does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;”
—1 Corinthians 13:6

Love goes.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and COMING in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
-Philippians 2:5-8

Do you have such a heart? Is the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus? To go until there is no place that His light has not shined?

There is a lot of work to do Christians.

How “good” we are is determined by whether we share the same heart as the only One who is good, who so loved the WORLD that He sent His only begotten Son that they may not perish but have everlasting life.

A desire to see “Your kingdom come, Your will be done” EVERYWHERE determines whether we hear “Come, you blessed of my Father” (Matthew 25:34), or “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:23, Matthew 25:41)

Love is the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

Let love be without hypocrisy. (Romans 12:9)

Father, help me to not be deceived by my own or the world’s sense of goodness. But, give me a heart that wants above all else to see Your kingdom come.

Create in me the heart to go, as Jesus did, to bring the Gospel not only to people’s hearing but also to what’s happening in their lives, to live as He lived that I may through obedience manifest the only One that is good: God, so that I can truly proclaim as my Lord did, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand”.

I ask this in service to my Master, your only begotten Son Jesus’ name.

Amen.

As Christians our constant occupation should be where to bring the Gospel, both to ears (word) and circumstances (deed), next.

“My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
—1 John 3:18

That’s good.

January 28, 2023

The Only Way To Call Jesus Lord

Photo Courtesy of Zoltan Toth – Flickr

“[…] no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” – 1 Corinthians 12:3

Because you’ve said “Jesus is Lord,” don’t read this and think that you’re in the clear.

You do realize that calling someone “Lord” indicates that you acknowledge their authority to tell you what to do, right?

“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” – Luke 6:46

Calling Jesus, “Lord” it is not about saying the words with your mouth but with your life.

Even demons recognized His title. What makes them demons was their rebelling against His will.

The line between the godly and the demonic is as simple as who’s rule you support: God’s or not. To be clear, any rule besides God’s is demonic, including yours.

But, even in that there’s grace.

“But what do you think?

A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went.

Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go.

Which of the two did the will of his father?

They said to Him, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.'”

– Matthew 21:28-32

All of us have areas in our lives that we have not given over to Christ’s lordship. We’re saying “I will not” because we’re comfortable with the demonic arrangements we’ve made for those parts of our lives.

The key to authentic faith and life in Christ is to trust Jesus. We must let God be true and believe His government produces life, while all others lead to death (whether it looks that way or not – many things that appear full of life are dying, e.g. a rose in a vase looks beautiful, it’s naturally a perennial [long living, enduring plant], but it began to die the moment it was cut – anything apart from God is dead).

When we belong to Christ, the Holy Spirit reveals areas in our hearts where Jesus is not King and one by one, with great violence, we must make war to turn them over to His rule.

It is in this process that though we formerly said, “I will not”, by the revelation of Christ and conviction of the Holy Spirit, we come to a place of repentance and obey, and in this struggle we truly say “Jesus is Lord” and can have confidence that we belong to Him.

It’s a work of the Holy Spirit.

September 20, 2022

Only Animals

We are basically primates competing for food, territory and resources to reproduce.

Our sophistication is only an illusion. Without any higher view, we are no more than base animals.

As base animals, all that we do, such as organize into groups, and all that we create, such as systems of government, are in service to the aforementioned.

So, if your group didn’t create the system you find yourself confronted with, you’re in the group being competed against.

There are ultimately only two logical outcomes: recognize how our interests are better served by becoming a larger group or seek to eliminate the other group.

I am concerned that our thinking has devolved too low to achieve the former, ironic given that we are in an age where information has never been more accessible but we lack knowledge, and I wonder if we are too far removed from the reality and horrors of war to avoid the latter.

If only there were leaders that could lead us to avert disaster and guide us to avoid the path of destruction.

If only there was a Person with a higher view who provided us an Example and taught His children to govern with knowledge, wisdom and equity so that the whole world; not only all peoples but all of creation was cared for and well.

If only God were real and there were such a thing as sons of God.

“For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”
Romans 8:19‭-‬21

We have fallen well short of our calling.

Repent. With me.

Originally posted by Paul Luckett to Facebook here.

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September 2, 2022

Live Like Jesus Is King

We’re very religious.

But, things in our world would look drastically different if Jesus were actually on the throne of our lives. “He does all things well.” -Mark 7:37

Does my thoughts look like they’re under His control?

Does my conversation reflect His perfect counsel and life giving power?

Does the order of my affairs look like He put them in order?

Does where I take residence reflect that a righteous, just, loving King resides there through me?

Do I allow His power to flow through me to make my home, workplace and community look like the Kingdom of God is coming?

Hypocrites!

We tote our bibles, go to church, do empty deeds and speak great swelling, superfluous words while people languish in the shadow of the great buildings and giant crosses we’ve erected to ourselves.

We come to religion looking for the good life, to justify ourselves, to take our ease and kick our feet up, often on the very backs of those we’re supposed to be serving.

This is not The Way.

Repent! Come from among these unbelieving apostates because their destruction is coming. (Matthew 24:45-51)

Seek the Kingdom of God beginning with it’s King.

See Jesus. Be transformed by who He is. Then, be Him in the world.

And, do not cease to make war until His Kingdom has come to every inch of our lives.

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. ” -1 John 4:17

#notwhatwho

Originally posted by Paul Luckett to Facebook here.

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April 16, 2022

52 Weeks of Gratefulness #14 – William Chapman

In Week 14 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for William Chapman.

What is it about us and food?

Our best moments seemed to be around breaking bread. This is the best picture I have of you because often when we’re together, we’re too busy eating for me to take pictures. And, here I’m sharing a meal with you and Tan at the Starkville Korean Church where you were a long time friend and faithful minister to that congregation.

The very first time I remember our sharing a meal together was at the men’s luncheon that meets on Thursdays at New Horizons Christian Fellowship, another place where you were also a long time friend and faithful minister. That’s where I got my first real glimpse of you and your cheeky attitude. I remember saying to you, “I solicit your counsel and give you authority to correct me,” and you snarkily replied, “I was going to do that anyway because I already have that authority.” Smart butt. That was the point that we became friends.

We’ve shared several meals since then, each time you were ministering. The first time I came to visit you in the hospital, you said “What do you have for me?” and you went on to teach how when a minister is visiting the sick, they should come either with a Word, a prayer or a song. With each visit we’d edify each other and then share a meal.

At your funeral, I learned that you did that all over the place: at the Starkville Korean Church, the Starkville Chinese Christian Church, Second Baptist Missionary Baptist Church, New Horizon’s Men’s Lunch, Mississippi State Christian Faculty Forum, teaching online Bible classes to people in China and on, and on. By God’s grace, that’s who you are: a minister and connector to the beautifully diverse, international, multi-ethnic, global body of Christ.

This brings me to our last meal together on Monday, April 4th 2022, where I also administered communion to you. You shared how you and your family were making your funeral arrangements. Your final remarks to me are etched in my soul. The first being, “I see no downside. Either Jesus will be the first face I see or that of my wife Tan. To live is Christ. To die is gain.” And, your last being, “Make sure they emphasize the importance of the diversity in the body.”

But, here you are, a white man, taking communion to your lips from my hand, a black man, as though you were receiving it from the Lord Himself.

Not once have you ever uttered, “I don’t see race.” Rather, you saw my blackness and did not consider it as a flaw but a feature of God’s design and embraced me. You did this for many others.

As I consider your last words to me, “Make sure they emphasize the importance of the diversity in the body,” and as I look around at your funeral, at those who have been born, grown and connected by your ministry, I see no need, your life has already done that. What I will do instead is endeavor to continue what you’ve done.

How fitting that we quite literally shared your last supper, a sacrament that connects us to every believer past, present and future, through the body and blood of Christ. Jesus said that “many will come from the East and West and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). What a glorious day that will be when you and I are assembled with believers from every nation, tribe and tongue (Revelations 7:9) to sup again with our Lord (Mark 14:25)!

Thank you for sharing a spiritual, cosmic, much more beautiful view of the kingdom than our natural, limited perspective allows. I’m grateful. #52WoG

February 5, 2022

An Unworldly Kingdom

What kind of kingdom is this where the King kneels before His subjects and serves them? (John 13:1-17)

Its implications are staggering, among which is this:

No one in His kingdom is without care, honor or substance because our status in this kingdom does not come from how much you’ve got but how much you give.

That’s a kingdom I’d gladly give everything to.

That’s a kingdom I’d gladly die for.

It’s vastly superior to every human attempt at government.

Our marriages, our homes and the church should be a glorious demonstration of it.

Imagine the effect if everywhere that we have authority or influence were a demonstration of His kingdom. Glory! This is what I’m pressing into. We fall woefully short as believers but there is grace and power to fulfill our ministry.

Repent, the kingdom of heaven is as hand.

Paul Luckett

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