Dallas Notes: The Kingdom of God (Christ Church London, 2011)

The Kingdom of God

you don't find sin interesting and you find righteousness powerfully interesting

[this is a main part of what I need: a more compelling vision of the Kingdom. that it is the treasure hidden in a field. that it is the pearl of great price. that it is better than winning the lottery]

If you want to obey Jesus' teaching about seeking first the KoG, you have to find what God is doing and get with it. identify with it. move into it. bless it. approve it. advance it.

4 main areas where God is in action:

1. Nature

bless the first good thing that meets you

Actually bless your food

2. God's Law

Ps 1

if you delight in the Law of the Lord and bring your life up against it and into conformity with it, you will experience the KoG -- God in action

don't try to keep the law but to become the kind of person who keeps it

3. the gifts of the Spirit

outcome is greater than we can humanly explain

the mark of the Spirit is always the incommensurability of the output to the input.

I challenge you to study the 'with God' principle from the beginning of the OT to the end [of the OT?]

4. the fruit of the Spirit

character. common to everyone.

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control

in the same way, the outcome is more than we can humanly produce

love is to will good for

the amazing thing is not that God loves you. it would be amazing if God did not.

the practice of the presence of God

Pr 3.5-6: Don't trust your own abilities, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will smooth your path.

Unless you become like a little child you cannot enter the KoG. What characterizes little children? Receptiveness, even presumptive

we presume upon the Kingdom in everything we do in our lives.

[we couldn't stop if we tried. it's how God set up the world.]

if you do everything with the KoG, the KoG will act with you

you need a little practice. God will help you. and if you intend to do it, you will learn it very quickly, because it's really good.

[Lord! Please let me learn to seek and find and live in Your Kingdom! I want to! I want to learn it quickly! Yes, Lord!]

Take your kingdom and everything that concerns you into the KoG

then when people see you they will say 'God is good'

You are the light of the world