ADVANCING THE KINGDOM NOW How do we know that Christians must not be just doing nothing until Christ takes full power?  Well, what was his own example?  When Christ was on earth he was active, and to be Christians (i.e. people acting like Christ), to the extent that health, age, abilities etc permit, we try to do as Christ did, which was little-to-nothing but a whole-whole-lot.  Besides, did the apostles just do nothing?  No!  They were very active preaching, teaching by word and example just as Christ had.  Remember Paul going on relief voyages all across the Mediterranean?  He didn't just talk as he went here and there at the risk of his life. So, then, given Christ’s example, while living on earth we must also be helping God’s Kingdom to advance here.  We must do the same sort of things that Christ and those who followed him from the time of early Christianity have done.  Christ preached and taught about peace etc, but also he helped people with real-life needs such as when they needed actual food such as bread and fish, had physical infirmities and sickness.   Our modern world contends with political conflicts, poverty, nuclear anxiety, racism, economic problems, social and governmental crises, and fortunately the numbers of concerned, alert, caring, active Christians have also grown. Some will try to justify doing nothing about the darkness by saying, Christ and the apostles had powers to work miracles that we can't work today.  But didn't Christ also say his disciples would do even more things!  Yes, he did.  Modern Christians can't lay a hand on someone who is dead and bring him back to life, but we definitely can bring the spiritually dead back to life with a kind word or helping hand at the right time.  Similarly we also have the power to spiritually heal those whose emotions and lives have been devastated; use our tongues in reviving praise to God and for healing and comforting the depressed, infirm and dying.   Yes, God's Kingdom is still in heaven, not yet fully come upon this earth; and yet, too, the Kingdom of Christ has been advanced by Christians on earth since from the time of Christ here.   It has yet to arrive in full, but meanwhile we work for that day as Christ and the apostles also did so.  The Kingdom of God will indeed yet take place in full upon earth. There is much freedom to hold different views about these “last days” leading on into the Kingdom come in full. We trust and know that even though we do not have perfect understanding or consensus of exactly how everything will occur, God Almighty definitely does.  Everything now revolves around the Father's Son, Jesus Christ.    So we move ahead, seeking to do God’s will daily while praying and working for God’s kingdom on earth, staying alert to the return of Christ and emphasizing the Good News of God's kingdom of the heaven coming here on earth.

"YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IN HEAVEN" SO WHAT DOES GOD WANT US TO DO HERE? Christ taught the model prayer which says "your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven." So where is the kingdom?  It's in heaven, according to Christ, but it is to come upon earth. When is it to come?  We don't know the hour, and any speculation is only speculation. There is one and only sure way to know when it has come.  When we see that it already has come, then we know it has come. It's like that with the weather, too.  People can make various predictions for the next day.  However, the best way to know if, say, it's going to rain, is to wake up the next day, look out the window and see.  Then your prediction is so good, it's not a prediction but a fact. When the kingdom has come upon earth, we will see it has clearly.  It will have set all things right. Meanwhile should we be sitting around making predictions on when it will come?  Or should we be fulfilling what Christ said God wants done more than anything else? Obviously, Christians need to do what Christ said we need to do.  He said above all to be 1.) showing love for God; 2.) showing love for God by showing neighborly love for others, especially the most needy like the blind, lame, orphans, widows, the poor. Look at it another way.  Two men died and their souls went before God.  Both men had gone to Christian churches.  Roy Christian said, "I've done what You wanted me to Father." "Well, and what was that?" said God Almighty. "I put thousands of hours into trying to figure when Armageddon would end the World, ushering in paradise." God turned next to Donald Christian.  "What did you do that I wanted you to do?" "I put thousands of hours into comforting the dying, feeding the hungry, getting clothing for those in need." God was going to reward one of the two men.  Which one do you say that He rewarded?  Which one is more like yourself?

THE KINGDOM God has always had His kingdom organization in heaven, but has it, as some would claim, come down upon earth in the form of some favored society, church, religion or any other human organization? John 18:36 (New International Version): Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." That's clear, isn't it. No human organization has ever faithfully represented God on earth, but His kingdom in heaven is still there and still faithfully representing Him.  Moth and rust cannot touch it.  It stays safely there. On earth there is, as Paul wrote, "one faith" (Eph 4:5).  That one faith existed when he said it did up to and including right now.  It's the Christian faith with good, average and bad branches.  Those with true faith do not sit idlely by doing nothing but every since the time of Christ on earth have done things to help advance the coming of the kingdom. The kingdom of God in heaven is, as Christ said, in our midst here on earth too, though located in heaven.  (Lu 17:21)  It comes straight from heaven into our hearts and minds, so for Christians who allow it to do so, it definitely already does reign here time within us.  We are as bright lights atop high hills in the darkness. In time the Kingdom is to come fully upon earth as in heaven.  Some visualize that as literally, others as symbolically, still others as in both ways.   There is freedom to differ while united by love. (Romans 14:1-22; Colossians 3:14) It is real and exerts real power.  (1Cor 2:4) Earthly kings and emperors have been jealous of its power, the greatest power there is over the human heart and mind, true love.  Love never fails.  (1Cor 13:8) Many scriptures have spoken of angels going back and forth from heaven to earth then heaven again.  In speaking of the future, Revelation 21:2-3 speaks of Christ, who is compared to a groom, coming from the Kingdom of God that is in heaven onto earth: 2  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. No, the honest fact is that we don't have details of all future events, but we do know that God cares about the earth with its humans and other creatures.  All things will be made right.  It is sad that you sometimes hear someone say they or someone they know of anticipates going to heaven but their marriage mate anticipates resurrection on earth which would mean separation.  However, since the bride of Christ, meaning those faithfully, spiritually wed to always following him, will come onto earth with Christ, those who think such a depressing thought are wrong.   In ancient times there was movement with visits from heaven onto earth, and the indication is in the future there will also be.  If anyone knows this and remains sad, it is not because of scriptures but a physcial condition such as depression from lack of the right body chemistry.  There will be no separation of loved ones.  Our heavenly Father is kind and loving, and He will make all things right.

WATCHTOWER'S VERSION OF THE KINGDOM This is highly scathing of the Watchtower Society over Jehovah's Witnesses and their messed up view of "God's Kingdom."  Just remember that the criticism is not "against Jehovah's Witnesses," many of whom include very fine, caring people, but rather blisteringly hot as to the stumbling done by their Watchtower heads out of New York. Dr. Jerry Bergman has written and spoken concerning the high incidence of depression and other forms of mental illness among Jehovah's Witnesses.  When Jehovah's Witnesses leave the Watchtower Society that dictates their beliefs, they do not automatically all become free of the negativity that such illness brings, although for some the reduction in stress that experience in new-found freedom is such as relief that it indeed does affect wonders and if not immediately then eventually a much more cheerful outlook on life. By disposition, too, many who leave Watchtower either act confused or grow anti-all religion including Christianity; or else they do stay spiritual if not religious, sometimes even become more zealous about belief in God, Bible and Christianity.  There is no one way to describe all Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses.  Everyone is different. However both those who stay in the Watchtower Society and those who leave have been heavily subjected, in some cases even for life, to the mentally unhealthy negative viewpoints of the men sitting at the top of the Watchtower Society's hierarchy.  Watchtower has unrelentingly taught Jehovah's Witnesses to use their mouths at the door for preaching, not for bringing systematic, wide-spread group-promoted relief to the poor and affflicted.  Some individual Jehovah's Witnesses have gone against the Watchtower system of negative indoctrination by all the same helping the needy, but relatively few.  Instead of doing nothing until the Kingdom would come in full, some indeed have shown their Christian kindness, but not Watchtower as a whole by its organizational doings or words.  Yet imagine what if every Jehovah's Witness were told by Watchtower to bring to a food pantry a can of food each week of the year!  For easy math if 1 million do so for 52 weeks, then that's 52000000 cans of food to help others.  Instead Watchtower has published statement condemning and making fun of Christians who have fed the hungry, for example calling Christian groups doing so in China, merely making "rice-bowl Christians!"  In fact under the fiery days of communism some estimates have been that up 50 million Chinese have all the same become Christians.  They were sparked to growth by earlier Christians in China who in turn were taught by acts of kindness such as not only words of kindess but bowls of rice so that they and their families did not starve in misery or die.  Watchtower's ideal of "God's Kingdom" is steep in self-righteousness.  Their Governing Body men have seen that Kingdom as synonymous with themselves, a negative, dangerous apostate notion. So when people leave the Watchtower and continue in this do-nothing-but-talk status, it means the Watchtower's false. negative teachings about the Kingdom still hold them in a grip even though they don't see it that way.  They are convinced that their view that interacting with the world to make it a better place is "being a part of Satan's darkness," when in fact doing nothing about that darkness enables it to persist. So, if you the reader are an exited or exiting Jehovah's Witness, then please remember this.  As you gain and have freedom, instead of doing nothing but maybe venting anger about Watchtower or possibly turning against God as if God had done to you and others the things that Satan or Watchtower did, instead use some of that negative energy to instead do good things like help others also exiting Watchtower or other high-control cult groups, people in great physical and financial need, etc. Even the littlest child can turn sour lemons into lemonade, and adults can definitely do the same.