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Colonizing the Creation
Christianity is always lived on the edge of inheriting Heaven’s unfolding salvation. To be saved is not simply a one-time experience; it is the ongoing encountering of and submission to the One who is making us whole. When He was on earth, Jesus was Heaven’s authoritative invasion into the fallen world. But the authority He exercised was revelatory, not political. He did not come to set up a political system but to invite all who would listen into a relationship that would harmonize them with Heaven. Today, the invasion continues. As we increasingly come into oneness with our God and then proclaim His heart over our region, our nation, and even the whole earth, He will impart through His creative words the power for many to be changed.
The premise of this book is that God determined to colonize His creation. As Heaven’s Apostle, Christ came revealing God to us. And as our High Priest, He has gone back to the Father bearing us before Him. If it is true that He was totally successful in His apostleship on earth, then we must also believe that He will be just as successful in His priestly ministry in heaven. O Lord, teach us how to pray in accordance with Your high priestly ministry that what is on Your heart would come to full fruition before the eyes of the whole earth.
God’s creation of man was the inaugurating of His work to colonize the creation, to establish on earth the culture, the ways, and the priorities of Heaven. When Adam rebelled, God did not simply pull back and cease His colonizing project. Rather, in the giving of the Law, in the taking of the Promised Land, in the sending of the prophets, in the incarnation of Christ, and in the ongoing outpourings of the Holy Spirit beginning from Acts Chapter 2 through today, His project has continued on unabated.
God’s goal in human history is that those who know Him would participate with Him in bringing the culture of heaven into the earth. When Israel took possession of the Promised Land, it was among other things a foreshadowing of an even greater spiritual victory unfolding in our day. As great as the victory was that Israel achieved in Joshua’s day, Heaven’s far greater present success is still coming to fruition across the earth.
So, the question arises – “As His kingdom is coming from heaven among us, how are we to recognize it?” Very simply, it is as we discern His operative grace in and through His people that we will discover the present expression of His rule. After all, His throne is a throne of grace. The result is that we will walk not in harmony with the world’s narrative but with His – the gospel of the Kingdom of God. And Heaven’s colonization will continue.
Too many think simply in terms of our going to heaven when we die or what Jesus will accomplish at His return. But God is in the process of making a statement to the nations based on Christ’s present intercessory ministry as high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. And the nations will yet see the full expression of what was in His heart when He started this project.
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