To be in something and not be of it is a puzzle we think we have solved. The idea is far out! This kind of construction can be said to be far out on a limb and way out of line or reach. Dread[ful-] may be a more suitable expression because the expression elicits thinking. The puzzle of citizenship is one of those phenomena that has interpersonal parallels. That is puzzling because lordship includes a set channel of humility and contradiction.

Puzzle Posed

How a person can be in the world but not of the world going to be in something and not of it is easy to explain in the physical sense. A boat can be in the water but doesn’t belong to the water. It belongs to the land and to the people who took wood and crafted it for venturing into the water. Its risk in the water is clearly demonstrated when the boat, contrary to its floating purpose, sinks.

Things can be good but cool is better. Christ could easily have sailed through the 40 days in the desert, but he hungered. Christ could have died peacefully with friends hanging around and the family holding his hand, but he died as a convicted criminal, innocent of any charge whatever.

Lordship in check

Christ is lord but not ruling everything. As strange as that may sound it is the same as saying that we are sons of God but acknowledging that it does not yet appear what we are going to be. Our sonship is real but there is a coming of age.

1 Corinthians 15:25-27

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him.

The places where the lordship of Christ gets to dominance had better not be secular constitutions not pretence that the Bible is the de facto foundation of civic life.

Really great persons with whom you really do not want to hang out include: lawyers, politicians, physicians, psychologists, pastors/priests, police officer, and a host of authorities behind the scenes.

They claim a higher standard of accountability. They are critical players in our lives and we will evaluate them at some point as hostile to Christ. Let us remember that it was not a whole lot of demons who sought for witnesses to condemn Christ.

If you have a friend who is one of these really great persons they ought to be fired because they are in a relationship (with you) that is eventually conflicted.

Friends will admit and even confirm things, but not condemn. Now that is hard. To condemn is a contra-Christian activity. This puts the majority of believers in a very different light when there is only one standard for bridging the gap between the world and the kingdom of God.

If you have not seen the new Timothy McVeigh in the virulent fundamentalist support for a Republican Party platform please look again. The pro-life activists are resolved to use every means – including personal violence – to prevent abortion, but they find themselves handcuffed and blind to protect children at school from murderous gunmen. A nation of laws ought to have some confidence in the agents of those laws. When both the chief executive and the legislative bodies are incapable of discerning right and wrong we have certainly reached the place where the difference between the kingdoms is in doubt.

Christians really have no bottom line on who gets elected. We cast our vote but the outcome is dependent on the sum of all votes cast. God’s plan does not get derailed when government officials change and the moment they tell us God’s plan and the state of union (throne speeches in Canada) are hand in hand is the moment to be very afraid of the beastly power that resides in Canada, in the United States, in Australia in the Arab Arab Emirates, in Israel, in Russia, and in Turkey.

If the Jewish people inherited the following, what chances are there for any modern state?

Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Luke 13:35