The Gospel of the Kingdom

As I sit here in my parent's house in Hillsboro and look back on the past year, it's hard to believe all that God has done since last May when I made final preparations to attend the Iris Harvest School in Pemba, Mozambique.  I am so deeply grateful for this life-changing experience.  I feel so blessed to have been chosen and provided for to go and be stretched in so many ways, to have my "box" blown apart several times, to see the hand of God and feel the presence of God in ways I had only heard about.  I'm so thankful for all the kingdom friendships which were established, for the bond that nothing can bring as quickly as the "frontlines."

My prayer is that I would have LEARNED the lessons God went to such lengths to teach me.  The truth about the upside-down kingdom--that it belongs to the poor in spirit, the desperate, those who allow no other props to get in the way.  It is beyond reasoning.  The One who gives all to serve all by going the lowest is given authority over all.  The one who serves little, gives little, fights to manage what they've attained, is given little authority.

I have seen blind eyes open, lame walk, the deaf hear.  I have seen food multiply on several occasions.  I have seen hundreds of people receive Jesus at the same time.  I've seen a church planted in a day, new believers eagerly asking for a pastor to disciple them.  I've seen believers with one change of clothes asking not for clothing but for a Bible.  I've met a single woman who built a church alone with her own two hands so that we would come.

Who did this things happen to?

They were all poor, unknown to the outside world, off the map in the bush of Mozambique.

The kingdom comes to the least of these.


And yet, I've also seen a white American girl healed of bruised and badly sprained ankle just in time to join a weekend outreach group.  I've seen a white South African man healed of a badly torn ligament in his knee in an instant.  I've seen a South Korean girl's leg grow out 1/2 inch to match the length of her other leg. These were all believers.

So God's kingdom is not only for the actual poor.  It's for all those who call upon His name!  The gospel of the kingdom doesn't mean I can only expect His hand only to touch the lost in Africa, or even the lost you meet in the supermarket, but even "rich" believers in America.

The Church in America is nearly as unreached as Mozambique, probably more so, when it comes to the Gospel of the Kingdom.  We've been preaching the Gospel of Salvation for years.  It is critical.  But it is NOT the whole gospel which Jesus commanded to be preached in the whole world and then the end will come.  I've heard it described as the door, say the front door of a house.  You enter the House, the family of God, through the finished work of Christ on the cross.  But if you don't understand the gospel of the kingdom, it's like opening the front door to a grand house and looking straight into the back yard.

Salvation is a gateway TO SOMETHING.  To the Kingdom of God.  A topic Jesus preached on more than any other topic.  And yet something we consider so seldom.

For those of us who want to see what the House, the Kingdom of God, actually looks like, for those of us who believe and are hungry and nearly starving for the Truth of the Kingdom, a gospel that has the POWER to transform lives--not to just save the soul, but to save, heal and deliver--I invite you to read accounts of my personal observations during these past few months in Mozambique.

I wrote an update of the 10 day bush outreach I got to co-lead with another Harvest staff member, Matthew Hedges, and Mozambican pastors from Pemba and Nampula province where we ministered.  I'll be writing more as the Spirit leads me to digest what I've seen and heard.

Thank you again for everyone who prayed for me.  I needed every last prayer!  And thank you for those who gave to financially support this.  I know it is a good investment.  ;)