Weekly Pursuit – Week 1 of December
Verses:
Acts 8:12 “But when they believed Philip, who announced the gospel of the kingdom of God and of the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.”
Excerpts:
The kingdom of God is the ruling, the reigning, of God with all its blessing and enjoyment. It is the goal of the gospel of God and of Jesus Christ. To enter into this kingdom people need to repent of their sins and believe in the gospel so that their sins may be forgiven and that they may be regenerated by God to have the divine life, which matches the divine nature of this kingdom.
The entrance into the kingdom is regeneration and that the development of the kingdom is the believer’s growth in the divine life. All the believers in Christ can share the kingdom in the church age for their enjoyment of God in His righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It will become the kingdom of Christ and of God for the overcoming believers to inherit and enjoy in the coming kingdom age, so that they may reign with Christ one thousand years. Then, as the eternal kingdom, it will be an eternal blessing of God’s eternal life for all of God’s redeemed to enjoy in the new heaven and new earth for eternity.
In the Gospels, the Lord’s ministry on earth, carried out by Himself, only sowed Himself as the seed of the kingdom of God into His believers, with no church built up yet. In Acts, the Lord’s ministry in heaven, carried out through His believers in His resurrection and ascension, spreads Him as the development of the kingdom of God for the building up of the church throughout the entire world to constitute His Body, His fullness, to express Him, even the fullness of God for God’s expression. (Life-study of Acts, msgs. 4-5)