Is the Kingdom of God growing? A few months ago, as I was praying and studying the word, I heard the Holy Spirit say, “You really understand my righteousness, now its time for me to show you the kingdom.”

 

“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added.” – Matthew 6:33

 

If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, you were given a free gift of righteousness. Even on your worst day, you can’t loose your righteousness or get more righteous, because it’s not based on your behavior.

 

And now he wants to reveal his Kingdom.

 

First off, where is it? The kingdom is inside of us. If you are born again, the kingdom of God is within you.

 

Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom. – John 3:3

 

The kingdom of God is within you. – Luke 17:20

 

Second, what does it look like? 

Matthew 13:31 The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds can come and perch in its branches.

 

This means the Kingdom of God is growing and expanding like a mustard tree! Where can the world go to find rest? To the body of Christ, the church, the bride of Christ. One day the bride will be so glorious and loving that the world will desire to rest on our branches.

 

Third, who has all authority in the kingdom?

Matthew 16:18 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you! And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you forbid (bind, lock) on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit (loose, open) on earth will be permitted in heaven.

 

If you have put your faith in Christ Jesus, you have been given keys to the kingdom of heaven. You have the ability to contribute to the expanding of the kingdom! We as the church, the body of Christ are responsible for expanding the Kingdom because he placed it inside of us and gave us the keys! Yes God is sovereign, but in his soverignity, he has given us authority to act on his behalf.

 

#1 The Kingdom is inside of you.

#2 It is expanding like a mustard tree (not getting worse).

#3 We have the keys and authority to expand the Kingdom.

Waiting on God to fulfill your destiny?

 

When I was a kid, my dream was to be a country singer, a country singing star. I was determined to win a Grammy Award as a teen, and I spent hours upon hours practicing my singing up until the wee hours in the morning. So my mom took me to all the singing competitions around Dallas/Fort Worth, this was back in the 90’s before karaoke, and we sang to background tapes. Yes, tape cassettes.

 

Well, after I got saved, I fell super in love with Jesus, my goals changed. I felt the call of God to be a worship leader!

 

So, after several years of leading worship in small churches with Brandon, we found ourselves at a mega church, I thought surely this is my destiny to be a famous worship leader, that’s why he called us to this church! Then after not 1, 2, 3, 4 but 5 auditions, I finally made it as a backup singer, with virtually no hope of ever leading, I was lost in the crowd for two years on top of the 5 years already spent trying to get in. Was I really that bad of a singer? I got awards, won contests, and lead worship for years. My heart was crushed, and I felt God didn’t love me.

 

So I got bitter toward God.

 

After all this time, I still wasn’t leading worship and all I was doing was getting older! Why God, if you’re my promoter, haven’t you promoted me? I’ve been so faithful! I mean, why do they get to lead worship, when I know I could do a better job! Don’t judge me, you know you’ve thought that before in your area of talent. I felt so hurt that God wouldn’t do for me what he did for them.

 

When we are bitter toward God, typically its because he has disappointed us in something we thought he would do or didn’t do for us.

 

So after years of waiting on God to promote me to lead worship, the Lord revealed what his grace really means, which meant I didn’t have to try so hard to be good enough, to be pleasing to him. That he viewed me as righteous regardless of my behavior simply because I believe in Jesus Christ! It wasn’t about me serving hard enough or being faithful enough. In fact, pleasing God had nothing to do with my actions, but rather Jesus’ actions on my behalf.

 

He paid my debt, He was obedient in my place, He laid his life down proving his love and his blood declared my infinite value.

 

And when I saw all this beauty wrapped up in the story of grace, he showed me something I just couldn’t see before:

 

God already gave me, and he’s already given you, everything you need to rise up in your purpose and calling. He’s already given you everything you need for life and godliness. Maybe you thought you were waiting on God, but he’s really waiting on you.

 

So I started writing songs because I couldn’t contain it inside anymore! His grace, his goodness, his love had to be expressed! And even though I didn’t have an audience, and even though we knew it would cost $30K and we didn’t have any money, Brandon and I decided to record a worship album, and we got to see God’s supernatural favor in our lives, in which many of you got to be a part of.

 

The worship album was the beginning of Him revealing His true purpose for our lives. God was calling us to greater things than I ever dreamed. Brandon and I started Grace For Eternity Church to declare this incredible grace and now we get to show others how to rise up in their destiny!

 

Do you want to know how to step into your destiny? How to heal your marriage, relationships, and even your body? Ask God for a revelation of His grace and receive the free gift of righteousness, and you won’t be able to contain it! And I’m not talking about “oh I know grace, I know I’m righteous” but “I know grace and I know I’m righteous”. In fact, I’m as righteous as Jesus!

Love hurts. Does it? When we say love hurts, what we mean is “because I love deeply, I am open to being deeply hurt”.

 

But what if that’s not true? What if loving deeply has nothing to do with being hurt when someone does something against us? If love hurts, then that would mean God hurts because God is love. God doesn’t hurt us, he can only love. When we are hurt by God, we have only misunderstood him.

 

Brandon and I dated 3 years before we got married. We loved each other soooo much! Or at least we thought we did. But soon after tying the knot, in fact on our honeymoon, we had our first big fight! I was hurt because I thought he was going to hold my hand and stroke my hair the whole time. The attention I thought he was supposed to give me my whole life started to fade on our honeymoon!

 

As a newlywed, and the majority of our marriage, I didn’t know that being married was not about me feeling loved. When I said, “I love you, what I really meant was, “I need you. If you don’t love me, I cannot love you back.”

 

Marriage is about me laying down my life to love my spouse, regardless of whether they love me back. I took a vow to love him, for better or worse, sickness or in health, till death do us part.

And it wasn’t until I really understood grace that I was set up to love unconditionally. Grace taught me what Jesus did for me. He loved me in my worst moments. He never left me. In fact, while I was a sinner, Christ died for me.

 

Understanding this gave me the power to love my husband regardless of how he treated me. And you know what? I learned how to receive the love of God, which is so much greater, and the only love that can really fill me anyway. And now it’s really hard to hurt me!

 

And you know the miracle? When I decided to lay my life down, guess what? My husband opened to receive the same love from God and learned to lay his life down too! Our marriage is better than I could ever dream!

 

God is love. So if you need love, you can find more than enough to show up in your relationships full of love, not getting offended every time someone does something against you. Offenses will come, quite assuredly some large ones, but is it possible to respond to offenses full of God’s love?

 

As a pastor, I want nothing more than for the body of Christ to learn to love each other. My desire is for the body to be so connected to the Lord’s love that they aren’t so easily offended with each other, fighting about who’s opinion is right and getting hurt when someone fails us.

 

Do we really want to give another human the ability to hurt us?

 

Love gives. Being hurt has nothing to do with us loving an individual.

 

If we are hurt, it means our “I love you” really means “I need you”.

 

If you don’t love me back, I am hurt.

 

What if we didn’t need love back? What if we were so full of God’s love that other’s behaviors didn’t really affect us? What if we are already deeply loved, complete in Christ?

If our self-worth is defined by another human’s ability to love us, we will be hurt. Yes, we care what others think, but we don’t place what others think above what God thinks about us. You are loved.

Are you vulnerable? Do we want to be vulnerable? Why would we want to be vulnerable?!

 

Brandon and I used to fight a lot. He felt like he was walking on eggshells around me. If he said the wrong thing, I would get offended and he’d end up in the doghouse. In the early years of marriage, he got really good at apologizing (even if there was nothing to be sorry about). I was trying to remember a good story about this, but couldn’t think of one, realizing all the things we used to fight about were so trivial!

 

We were both insecure, needing each other to be validated. We were very vulnerable with each other. If my husband didn’t think highly of me that day, I felt worthless. If he looked at a pretty girl, I felt ugly. If he said the wrong thing, I was offended.

 

But God. When everything started collapsing around me, I started really seeking love from God, and it gave me a new way of perceiving. Knowing God’s love gave me a security independent of not only my husband’s love but from everyone else’s too.

 

So I hear this word come up in Christian circles a lot. And I’ve been thinking about it. Vulnerable. We will say, “Thank you for being vulnerable.” And “Wow she was so vulnerable!” Like it’s a good thing, but I think we are getting that definition confused. I think what we really want is for someone to be authentic and real.

So when we talk today, I don’t want to confuse the two words. Authentic and Vulnerable.

 

Being authentic says, “I admit I have problems.”

 

Being vulnerable says, “I’m insecure.”

 

And maybe that is true, but do we really want to remain trapped in insecurity? How do we go from being insecure with problems, to secure with problems? Because unfortunately, problems are going to keep coming our way.

 

Let’s take a look at this word vulnerable:

 

Vulnerable –

* Susceptible of being emotionally wounded, especially in being easily hurt. (easily offended)

* Susceptible to attack.

* Susceptible to temptation or corrupt influence.

 

Invulnerable –

* Incapable of being wounded, hurt or damaged either physically or emotionally.

* Immune to attack.

 

Is it possible as believers to move from being vulnerable to invulnerable? Unbelievers don’t have a place to put their hope and security in, but Christ followers? We do. And what’s amazing is once we really see God’s love for us, we can then see where other’s actions are stemming from. Then we are not easily offended.

 

We don’t have to ride the emotional rollercoaster, needing others to behave to make us feel stable!

 

The body of Christ has got to grow in the love of God, or we will respond to the world and all our problems just like them. Do we have no hope? Are we really going to put our hope in another human? Are we really going to let another person define who we are?

 

With a family member or spouse, what if they disappoint us? Is it really a shocker? We say we can’t believe what they did, but why not? Am I perfect? Would I have done the same in their shoes? What’s their driving force for their actions? Maybe they misunderstand the love of God for themselves. And what if we responded outside of being offended? Would it impact our relationships?

 

Being secure in God means you are immune to attack. Because he is the one guarding your heart. In fact, being secure in God even guards our bodies against disease and sickness. Stress lowers the body’s immune system.

 

So HOW do we move from being vulnerable to invulnerability?

 

Here you have it, the simple answer:

 

Meditating on what Christ did for you. Meditating on His love for you. Spending time with the love of your life, Jesus,

How can we be happy? What if our happiness doesn’t depend on our spouse?

 

Back when I was first married, like 19 years ago, I didn’t have many friends. But Brandon did and would go out and play volleyball with me sitting at home all alone, pouting.  I didn’t understand why, if he loved me, wouldn’t he want to be with me all the time?

So you know what I would do when he got home? I’d get on to him about leaving me there all alone.

 

And guess what that caused? He went out more! Who would want to come home to an angry pouting wife!

 

I blamed my husband for not making me happy and heaped as much guilt on him as possible to try and manipulate the man to get him to be with me 24-7.

 

Now that’s a way to start a marriage off right!

 

Well, after a while I discovered my controlling ways seemed to backfire. So I tried the opposite. I tried mustering up all my joy to be kind when he got home. And that helped a lot. He wanted to be with me more and would even invite me to go with!

 

You would think that was the way to live in a marriage relationship and I should teach that tool to all my married friends. Well that sounds good too, but then I found other things that would trigger my insecurities. While doing good things produced good fruit in my life, it was all an act to get him to do something I wanted. And it was really hard learning how to try to please him all the time. It’s hard living a life of trying to hard please another. There are so many ups and downs!

 

Sometimes feeling like a great wife, and others the worst.

 

I was viewing my relationship with my husband much like my relationship with God.

 

I struggled to please God, trying all the tactics to earn his favor. I felt when I blew it, he’d discipline me some way that was very bad.

 

Romans 10:3 For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law. For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God. (New Living Translation)

 

When I found my relationship with God was not based on if I was good or bad that day, (clinging to my own way) I started to chill a little bit.  Learning that righteousness wasn’t based on my behavior I stopped trying so hard, and the fruit was peace.

 

In my marriage, learning my right standing with God, gave me a confidence to not be so needy of my husband, I found myself not needing my husband’s approval to be ok. I now rely on God to make me happy.

 

And we can all step into happiness because it’s only found in God. Happiness is not found in external things, or behavior of others. Happiness is found in knowing you are completely at peace with God.

 

I encourage you to seek peace with God and let Him fulfill your every need. Then you will get the fruit of peace in your relationships.

When Brandon and I were having marriage problems, we went to Christian marriage counseling at our church. It was a group counseling session. There’s a reason men hate being dragged to those things!

The first thing they did is have us confess our sins out loud and then opened the scriptures to Colossians 3:5 and told us all the things that we should NOT be doing.

While it’s true that bad behavior and sexual immorality cause harm to our marriages, it’s not HOW we are changed to no longer want to run to sin anymore.

I think it’s pretty apparent we are there because we know it’s bad.

So what’s the problem with this kind of Christian marriage counseling? There’s no power public shame to make us like Christ.

What happened is the marriage counselors skipped over the entire first two chapters that remind us of who we are in Christ.

We have completely been forgiven (Col 1:14), been reconciled and because of his blood, we have already been made holy and blameless (Col 1:22).

He canceled the record of debt that stood against us by nailing it to the cross (Col 2:14). And so much more!

Being reminded of that, do you now want to run out and sin?

The power of change is shown to us in 1 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. (English Standard Version)

As we behold Jesus and His image, we are changed by His Spirit into the same image. It’s called a relationship with God. Not rules and regulations, but a relationship. That is where the power of change lies.

If you want Christian marriage counseling or coaching, please reach out, and let’s focus on the power of change by discovering our identity in Christ.