what I'm learning : Kingdom-culture

Last June I wrote a post titled Grace Beyond Forgiveness about God inviting us to be citizens of His Kingdom. In the last several months, He's woven this very concept throughout everything He's taught me. Being a citizen of God's Kingdom isn't some side thing that happens when we decide to believe in Jesus. Rather, it is every believer's new identity. From the moment we choose to believe in Jesus, we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. Because of this citizenship, we have certain responsibilities as well as rights & privileges. Not only that, but as citizens of God's Kingdom, we also have a new culture to learn.

It's no surprise that God doesn't think like we do (Isaiah 55:8-9) so why would His Kingdom operate like any that humans create? Or why would we impose our broken system onto His perfect one? On the same token, why would we continue to live by the norms of an earthly culture rather than the norms of the Kingdom we were created for? 

It's easy to look at popular American culture and point out things that don't line up with our ideas of Biblical living. But that's not what I'm talking about here. Yes, Kingdom-culture involves "putting to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you" (Colossians 3:5-9), but there's so much more to it than that. If we want to learn Kingdom-culture, we must stop comparing America to the church and start comparing our lives to the Bible. Just as Jesus cautioned the disciples not to let the deception of the Pharisees and Sadducees (religious leaders) spread among them (Matthew 16:5-12), we must be careful to not let the culture of the church spread among us. It's so easy to huddle-up with the believers around us and put effort solely into making ourselves better. But that's not Kingdom-culture. In fact, that's the very thing Jesus condemned the religious leaders for doing.
When we choose to live by the culture of the Kingdom, we refuse to stay huddled-up. Instead, we live as ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:18-20); in other words, bringing people into right relationship with Jesus becomes more important to us than the comfort of our own community. In Kingdom-culture, we live outside of the walls of the church so that others may come to know Jesus. We recognize that serving isn't something we do just for the benefit of other believers (Mark 10:42-45). We choose to love sacrificially for the sake of people who do not yet know Jesus (John 15:9-17, John 13:34-35). 

We can easily get caught up in the way we're used to living life, but Jesus condemned religious leaders for valuing tradition over the Word of God (Matthew 15:1-9). If we choose church-culture over Kingdom-culture, aren't we just like the people Jesus warned His disciples not to be like (Matthew 23:1-3)?

Update on my trip:
So far I've raised $946 of the $4,500 I need to travel this summer. I need another $554 by Saturday (the 28th) to reach my $1500 deadline.
If you'd like to know more about my trip, please e-mail me.
Thank you to everyone who has already contributed! I am truly thankful to have such generous friends.