JohnBlog - Word&LightSample

JohnBlog - Word&Light Day 12 The prophet was so successful that he almost stole the show and had to keep telling people that he was not the main attraction - someone greater was coming next. Consider what was said about John (he came to bear witness to the Light) with what John said about Jesus (the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; the one who is coming to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven will baptize with the Holy Spirit; prepare for him by repenting). What does this tell us? • That the Kingdom of Heaven is the Kingdom of Light. Jesus, Light of the World, came into the world to be King and to rule over an enlightened people, set free from darkness and rebellion against their maker. • Somehow, being baptized with or in the Holy Spirit (the imagery of baptism implies being both drowned in and filled up with the Holy Spirit) is apparently fundamental to entering into the Kingdom of Light. • Repentance (turning around and embracing God) prepares someone to be filled with the Sprit of God and to enter the promised Kingdom ruled by the Light of the World. There you have the gospel. The good news that the Jewish nation had waited 400 years for since returning from exile under the Babylonians and the Persians. The everlasting Kingdom promised to King David and his descendants in the halcyon days of the Jewish nation. The children too numerous to count promised to Abraham, father of the Jewish and Arab nations. The restoration of the Arumin (naked and unashamed) relationship between God-breathed men and women and the God who did the breathing and who walked with them in a primeval Earthly paradise. Jesus, at last come back to build a kingdom of light; a kingdom of the enlightened, following King Jesus, empowered to do so by being filled with the Spirit of Jesus. The Disciple: Search me and know me my King. Is there anything I am or do that is not worthy of the Kingdom of Light? Is there anything that I am not yet that will make me shine more radiantly in the image of the King? Are there any paths I am treading that are leading me to dusk and darkness? I will repent. I will prepare. I will turn and embrace. I will drown. I will rise up anew.