Other Messages
The Upside-Down Kingdom
When we live life constantly chasing joy, peace, purpose, and meaning, because these things are just out of reach or slipping through our fingers when we think we have found them – maybe it’s because we are living UPSIDE DOWN.
At a theme park, going upside down can be fun… in life, it can be quite disconcerting to realize.
It often takes something traumatic – maybe tragic – to open our eyes to the idea that we are not living the way life was meant to be lived. It is a shock to our souls when we discover that we’ve been living upside down.
Ask yourself these questions:
How would you like to live like you are blessed?
Receive comfort?
Live without need?
Be satisfied?
Rejoice even when it seems the entire world is against you?
The world’s answer to this is:
-Work really really hard to live comfortably and without need.
-Achieve and excel – be the best – to be satisfied.
-Think so highly of yourself that no one can bring you down.
No wonder the Bible tells us that people were astonished at the teachings of Jesus…
Mat 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Mat 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Mat 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Mat 5:11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Mat 5:12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
That’s completely the OPPOSITE of what the world says to do! No wonder you feel so down and out and sick of life! You’ve been living OPPOSITE from the way of TRULY LIVING!
Even Christians are not immune to the feeling of being upside-down…
“The Christian’s position is unique: they are in two worlds at once.” -Charles Spurgeon
Joh 17:16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
We are in the Kingdom of God and living in the World simultaneously. The world is always trying to flip the kingdom back in the opposite direction.
When we are looking at the world upside-down, we feel…
Worry
Fear
Lonely
Incapable
We must keep our feet by keeping our focus…
Get in prayer
Get in the word
Get in the church
Get to serving
The world’s way leads to constant change… and it’s called progress… but it is really entropy… a falling apart… it is a descent into chaos… every which way which results in no way…
The Kingdom pulls everything together toward a single entity – a person – Jesus Christ.
Instead of devolving into a muddled mass of nonsense, life becomes all the more clear as we approach Jesus – in our thinking, desires, values, and every other facet of our lives.
The direction of the world is literally the polar opposite of Jesus’ direction… it’s completely upside down.
Here’s the thing about the Kingdom. Not only is it right side up from what the upside-down world thinks and values, it is also CLOSE.
The very moment you sink down from your worldly thinking, you rise to fulfillment in Christ.
You go UP by sinking DOWN.
When the world seems all topsy turvy and upside down – when nothing seems to make sense – I will focus on JESUS – He is the WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE!