Destined to Reign…Through Suffering and Service

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Since we’re focused on the Work of Mercy of reigning this month, I have my Google-o-meter set to send me all mentions of the word “reign” that come up in blog posts and the news. I’ve observed the following three things so far:

  1. Most contemporary references to the word “reign” occur in the sports section.
  2. “Reign” is a hard word to drop into everyday conversation and, thus, one rarely finds it there. It has devolved into a comic book term in contemporary culture.
  3. Theologically, the term has been completely ceded to the fringe. Responsible writers don’t touch it.

Each of these three realities is grievous, given the centrality of reigning (and preparing us for co-regency) in the New Testament. And nowhere has that grief been more acute for me this month than in today’s “Look What The RSS Dragged In” excerpt from Joseph Prince’s new book, Destined to Reign: The Secret to Effortless Success, Wholeness and Victorious Living:

You are destined to reign in life. You are called by the Lord to be a success, to enjoy wealth, to enjoy health and to enjoy a life of victory. It is not the Lord’s desire that you live a life of defeat, poverty and failure. He has called you to be the head and not the tail. If you are a businessman, God wants you to have a prosperous business. If you are are a homemaker, you are anointed to bring up wonderful children in the Lord. If you are a student, God wants you to excel in all your examinations. And if you are trusting the Lord for a new career, He doesn’t just want you to have a job, He wants you to have a position of influence, so that you can be a blessing and an asset to your organization!

To his credit, Grant Norman examines the book at length, graciously and thoughtfully refuting Prince’s arguments systematically while refraining from belittling or personal attacks–truly a model of how we ought to do this sort of thing. It’s worth reading just to see how he does it, and to be encouraged to do likewise.

My own two comments are in a more reflective, homework-y vein:

1.  Most of us Christians will vehemently object to Prince’s theology of reigning when stated in book form like this–as well we should. But break down Prince’s excerpt above sentence by sentence, and most of us Christians implicitly live and pray–and hope–as if what Prince is saying is true. Try it yourself: Read each of Prince’s sentences individually, and ask yourself, “Against my better theological judgment, do I act as if this is true? Do I pray prayers that assume this? Do I expect this from God and react with disappointment when he does not comply?” I confess that I certainly do, with alarming frequency. Praying through the why and undertaking appropriate repentance to correct our notions of reigning are what this month-long focus is all about.

2. Prince’s logic is seductive because it postulates two states: Being a success or being a failure; passing your exam or flunking it miserably; having wonderful and obedient children or spawning the offspring of Satan. But Christ’s reign–and all of the New Testament, for that matter–are about the repudiation of those two options and the revealing of and invitation to embrace a third (which, it turns out, is the only defensible method of reigning): Mirroring the grace and character of God into the world in every aspect of our lives. Do that, and the unanimous witness of the apostles, prophets, and (ahem) martyrs is that the world will tear you down, not submit to you. And in the midst of that opposition, it is your willingness to serve God, by suffering for your enemies as a means of his grace to them, that marks you out as his co-regent. Not only Prince misses that. We all do.

David Qaoud puts it nicely when he says, “Jesus suffered not so that we wouldn’t have to, but so that when we do, our suffering would be meaningful — namely, for his glory.”

It simply isn’t true that God doesn’t want us to suffer. True, God does not want us to suffer pointlessly or needlessly. But the world remains in open rebellion against God. Those who reign in his kingdom are by definition enemies of the kingdoms of this world. Suffering and service are the marks we willingly bear that point to the coming kingdom, to the one true reign. We bear these marks of suffering and service joyfully–and meaningfully–because suffering for and with the one you love always beats success on any other terms.

Posted in Reigning | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Video – Reigning through Footwashing?

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Pastor Foley

In our culture, footwashing doesn’t “pack the same punch” that it did in Jesus’ day.  This is precisely why Jesus provided footwashing only as an example rather than a sacrament to be repeated.  Pastor Foley examines the principles found in the John 13 footwashing that can be used to inform our own modern-day reigning opportunities.

Youtube Link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn1YIYgc9SQ&w=560&h=315

For all of the latests podcasts on Reigning and on past Work’s of Mercy visit our Seoul USA Podcast Page!

Posted in Reigning, Videos | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Mundane Act of Reigning (Super-Christians Beware)

Posted on November 21, 2012 by tdillmuth

Post by Pastor Tim Dillmuth – If we’re not careful, it’s easy to mistake reigning as a spiritually elite activity only for the Super-Christians among us (and just for the record I am not among that elite class).

Reigning is quite the opposite though, in most cases it’s the normal . . . even mundane act of caring for and cultivating the world around us in a way that reflects God’s character and glory (James Davison Hunter).  And when it comes to reigning, we don’t only seek to “care and cultivate”, we seek to model that care and cultivation as an example to others around us.

And this Work of Mercy is not some new Christian fad, but it actually dates back to God’s mandate in the creation account (Gen. 1:26-28)!

If you’ll recall, last week I sought to reign through my difficult situation with the newspaper.  I did in fact write a letter to the editor, but nothing earth shattering or spectacular happened as a result.

What did happen was that the normal (and yes a little difficult) act of reigning interacted, cared for and cultivated those around me.  Let me share a few of the results from last week’s letter to the editor.

  1. I had the opportunity to interact in a very simple and transparent manner with the editor and the reporter who wrote the article.  The reporter who had made the mistake thanked me not only for my understanding, but also for compassion.
  2. I had a long conversation with a dear friend in which we encouraged each other in mutual opportunities of reigning.  His situation involved a neighbor installing a new driveway which was placed carelessly on the wrong side of the property line!  Instead of legal action, my friend has been moved (by the Spirit) to redraw the property lines and give the difference to his neighbor as a gift.
  3. My wife and I have grown in the Lord as we worked through how to respond in a Christ like fashion.

I’m a privacy-coveting American by nature, but it turns out God’s call to us is to be transparent in the mundane–to “let our light shine before men“–so that Christ’s rule
and reign is evident in the everyday moments of our lives. Privacy takes a back seat to calling people to imitate us as we imitate Christ.

So, even within my almost surreal situation with the newspaper, my act of reigning was quite average.  And some of the best ways that you can reign could also be described as normal or routine.  Normal activities such as faithfulness to your spouse, a daily practice of scripture reading, honesty in all your business dealings are what exemplify the Work of Mercy of reigning.

But . . . you won’t get profiled on Christianity Today for completing these kinds of activities.  And chances are no one is going to pat you on the back for your efforts either.  And that’s because this goes against the grain of our modern Christian experience.  Matthew Redmond says, “It appears that the current evangelical climate is one in which faithfulness and spirituality are measured by the eventful and the big — the bombastic. If the waves are not huge and the shifts are not seismic then we assume a kind of carnality.”

Consider the life of King David.  Some of his greatest acts of reigning were done before he was king and often could be described as mundane and thankless.   Take a moment to ponder some of the mundane ways that David reigned in these situations.

I’m sure you figured out by now that by normal and mundane I don’t also mean unimportant.  You see, it’s often in these normal, mundane, and thankless efforts that reigning is properly brought to life.  The great acts of Christian devotion always start with small acts of Christian obedience.

Do you want to reign with Christ this month?  Let’s start with the small, faithful, steady and mundane acts of obedience in our everyday lives.

Posted in Reigning | Tagged , , | Leave a comment