{"id":142,"date":"2010-11-11T09:22:24","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T14:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=142"},"modified":"2010-11-22T09:30:26","modified_gmt":"2010-11-22T14:30:26","slug":"our-first-day-in-the-kingdom-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=142","title":{"rendered":"Our First Day in the kingdom of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday of 32nd Week of Ordinary Time<\/o:p><\/span><\/h2>\n

St. Martin of Tours<\/st1:place><\/st1:city><\/o:p><\/span><\/h2>\n

Phlm 7-20;<\/span> Lk 17: 20-25<\/o:p><\/span><\/h2>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/h2>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/font><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

This is the first day of the rest of your life!\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>An old clich\u00c3\u00a9, yes. but an accurate way to sum up the essence of the Kingdom<\/st1:placetype> of God<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Because today, all of us who are saved, those who believe; those whose eyes are open to what God wants them to do in their lives; these people are already experiencing the Kingdom of God, for it is right there among them, just as Jesus said..\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Now you might say to yourself:\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How can that be?\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Is this all there is to the Kingdom<\/st1:placetype> of God<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>?\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>What about the everlasting joy that was promised?\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Surely this cannot be it; this imperfect world with all its problems and evil and sickness and pain.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Well, just suppose that the key to the Kingdom<\/st1:placetype> of God<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> is this:\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>That God gave us life and love, And that the love of God, when we believe in it and cooperate with it so that it dwells in us, guarantees us everlasting life.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Well then, on the day in your life when you come to embrace all that, that is the first day of your life when you are living in eternity.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>You are already experiencing the Kingdom<\/st1:placetype> of God<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>And nobody can ever take that away from you.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>That is the promise.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Yes, you may get sick or old; and you will even die in this world, but when you believe that such a death is just the beginning of our eternal life with the God who is the source of all life, then the joy of knowing we will live forever with God is ours.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>And that is a joy that transcends all the rest of the pain in our lives.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>That joy can and should already be with us.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

The world, on the other hand, is looking for joy somewhere else.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Some people seek happiness in the pleasure of things in this world, setting aside belief in God and rejecting the promise- how sad.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Other people seek out the finest music; the clever new message; the most entertaining preacher; in an effort to find the Kingdom<\/st1:placetype> of God<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>They seek visions of Jesus and the coming of the Kingdom that flash before them like lightning because they are seeking the Kingdom<\/st1:placetype> of Heaven<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> as if it was hidden away from us and was some deep dark secret rather than listening to the Gospel message of Jesus.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

The Kingdom<\/st1:placetype> of God<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> is at hand.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Accept what seems to be such a simple and uncomplicated message: that Christianity\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s promise is it.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>God loved us so much he sent his son, who suffered, died, and was buried.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>He rose, and promised us a place in his Kingdom if we believed and did his will.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>When you really embrace all of that, you need not search any further for the truth because this can be the first day of the rest of your life in the Kingdom<\/st1:placetype> of God<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday of 32nd Week of Ordinary Time St. Martin of Tours Phlm 7-20; Lk 17: 20-25 Dc. Larry Brockman \u00c2\u00a0 This is the first day of the rest of your life!\u00c2\u00a0 An old clich\u00c3\u00a9, yes. but an accurate way to sum up the essence of the Kingdom of God.\u00c2\u00a0 Because today, all of us who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}