Well if you have not figured it out by my silence lately I have been overly pre-occupied with moving our family to Jefferson City.  I have had many thoughts and ideas that I would love to share with you but I just don’t have the time to write them down but I have asked a friend of mine named Coleman Barbour.  Coleman was a classmate of mine at Midwestern and a former co worker at Westside Family Church.  Over the years Coleman and I have grown close and I have had the chance to see him grow into a man of God that honors God and his family.  I pray you learn from him as I have over these last few years.

So recently I heard the kingdom of God compared to medieval earthly kingdoms and my mind went wild.  See I am somewhat of sci-fi and fantasy geek so I was immediately lost to everything else that was said in that sermon, but I still think it was a good thing.  As I began to flesh out the analogy in my mind I realized how deep and complex it is.  After a while I realized that it didn’t stop and that it wasn’t really an analogy.  God has chosen to reveal himself to us as King since the beginning.

In Genesis He sets himself up as king of the universe by speaking it into existence.  The same way that a king says that a man will live or die, God says to the universe to exist or not exist.  At the root of this idea is rule and power.  God refers to Himself as the rejected king of Israel in I Samuel. I think that the idea of a king is something that we in the USA don’t really get, but imagine you are in a medieval style kingdom.   In a kingdom model, people give allegiance to a king.  Well imagine a kingdom full of usurpers.  Everyone committed treason to the throne.  See, a good king would normally sentence all the rebels to death and/or exile.   So that is just what happened.  Now imagine that this king, being good pursued you as a rebel, sentenced to death.  His knights come riding on horses and you can only hide in shadows, stealing for your own survival from the king.  You run and hide, but they catch you in an open field.  You are taken to the castle and hanging from the wall is the corpse of the prince. You know the king is in an outrage at the death of his son.  They throw you at the feet of the king and he draws his sword.  He raises it to strike and you know it’s over when you feel the cold kiss of metal on you neck.  Then, you feel it on the other side.   “Rise” says the good king.  You rise and he calls you a knight.  He gives you lands and even more so he calls you child.  “How?” you ask.  You find out that your debt has been paid by another one’s death; the death of the Prince.  You now have life and a royal inheritance.  And all this because the Prince died in your place.

The stories are all true.  The king is mighty and awful, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t  good.  So given the two choices, inheritance or banishment, which do you choose?  Where does your allegiance lie?  Do you go willingly to the good and mighty king or do you live in fear and run from him forever?    It’s all about where your allegiance lies.