Monday, July 11, 2011

The Kingdom Life As Christ Would Have Us Live It:

In every city throughout the world today, there is a city descending out of heaven from God. Each one of us is daily building up this city – or helping to keep it back.

In all seriousness I make this definite practical proposal: believe in your city. What else? In Jesus Christ. What about Him? That He wants to make your city better; that that is what He would be doing if He lived there. What else? Believe in yourself – that you, even you, can do some of the work which He would like done, and that unless you do it, it will remain undone. How are you to begin? As Christ did. First He looked at the city; then He wept over it; then He died for it.

Where are you to begin? Begin where you are. Make that one corner, room, house, office, as like heaven as you can. Begin? Begin with the paper on the walls, make that beautiful; with the air, keep it fresh; with the very drains, make them sweet. Abolish whatsoever makes a lie – in conversation, in social intercourse, in correspondence, in domestic life. This done, you have arranged for a heaven, but you do not yet have it. Heaven lies within here; in kindness, in humility, in unselfishness, in faith, in love, in service. To get these in, get Christ in. Teach all in the house about Christ – what He did, and what He said, and how He lived. Teach it not as a doctrine, but as a discovery, as your own discovery. Live your own discovery.
Then pass out into the city, your community. Do all to it that you have done at home.

[based on Finan readings from Celtic Daily Prayer]

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