FELLOW CITIZENS IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE: “You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:19–20). DAILY FIRE! - Christ For All Nations If I do what the apostles did, I will get what the apostles got! The gospel that the disciples preached as they went out was the gospel of the kingdom of God: the good news that the kingdom was close to them. But they preached it in terms not used by John the Baptist, and only occasionally used by Jesus Himself.  Their kingdom gospel was proclaimed in the language of Christ crucified. It was not a different gospel, but it contained a tremendous new fact—the vital fact about the kingdom of God: the cross. When Jesus had spoken of it earlier, Peter had even tried to rebuke Him. What at first seemed outrageous to the disciples was (as they later realized) the all-important mystery of the kingdom: the self-sacrifice of the King for the kingdom.  The kingdom is established by the titanic battle and victory of Christ. His blood marks its foundations. Calvary is the source of the redemptive dynamic of God, the nuclear power drive of the gospel, and of all the gifts of the Spirit. Modern religionists are busy building Calvary bypasses. The gospel of the Bible is caricatured as a gospel of gore—as if in our world, anybody could be squeamish about blood! Roads that avoid Calvary prove to go nowhere.  There are no roundabout routes. The kingdom of God has a checkpoint and border control, and it is at the cross. Without having been to Calvary, everybody lives a second-class existence as illegal immigrants.  Passport and entry permits are repentance and faith in Christ Jesus. Then we may enter with the full privileges of citizens, no longer “strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household” (Ephesians 2:19). The “covenants of promise” (verse 12) are ours. Taken from Daily Fire Devotional: 365 Days in God’s Word by Reinhard Bonnke. Copyright © 2015 by Reinhard Bonnke. Use by permission of Whitaker House. www.whitakerhouse.com

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