The world was a tense place when the Master walked in. People were coming and going as in the usual give and takes of human existence. And--as if ignorant of what was happening--he said in Mat 6:33, "Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need." For the Romans, there was nothing as "all else" as power, Greeks were preoccupied with human intelligence, and the Jews were obsessed with religion. All of that seemed meaningless unless priority was given to the Mat 6:33 Imperative.
Our greatest tragedy is that we are separated from God! We are unable to function to optimum because we see ourselves as independent from God and the rest of the universe. Our politics, philosophy and religion have pushed us even deeper into this quagmire. The only success we've made of ourselves is a mess. How do we turn it all around?
There is only one answer, and it is caught in the words of the late African Apostle Nicholas Bhengu, "Back To God." We've missed it so bad, we must go back to the God-beginning, and Jesus called it "Born again."We need a new mindset for everything. We must "Repent!"
Religion has stripped the word "Repent" of its original and more powerful meaning. It is now limited to a list of do's and dont's that are palatable to human taste. You either measure up to a rigid religious-list or you get thrown out. Repentance is not a religious list of what to do and not to do, it is a spiritual journey "Back To God." And that journey begins with the Christ of God, believing that he was whom he claimed to be, the Son of the living God and the saviour of the world.
God is a spiritual journey; a very long spiritual journey. There is no religious list on human morality that can capture the processes of that unfolding journey, and that is why Paul wrote Romans12:2b, "But let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."
The spiritual journey in Christ is a journey of learning (discipleship), and in the learning we are transformed. We all have a personal pilgrimage, that journey we undertake between birth and death. We either live it within the determinations of the human environment, or the unfolding processes of the Spirit of God. Transformation is not a once-off instalment, it comes over time in a journey where we arrive yet never arrive. Our intention is not destiny but eternity. We live the not-yet as though it already was, and pray "Thy Kingdom come...and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
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