Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
The kingdom is to do the Father's will. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done" is set up as two sides of the same coin. Just as "Love God" and "Love your neighbor" are.
|
I am glad that you provided a follow-on post because "to do the Father's will" is, at some level, about as vague as we can get.
Seems that "love God and lover your neighbor" is a better definition, although it is still within "do the Father's will."
And what we do together in the setting of a meeting can, at best, only deal with one of those commandments to love. And even that one can be missed in that setting. This is why I have been so strong concerning the practical aspects of righteousness, justice, joy, peace, love, etc., outside of meetings because if we are getting this part wrong, it is likely that we are getting the meeting parts wrong as well. We may say all the right "you are lord and king" stuff and declare that we love him. But if we don't continue it into loving neighbor as self, it was probably just window dressing.
Surely doing all the outward stuff without God is meaningless. But how often do any of us do the outward stuff even with God? I suspect that actually doing the outward stuff would tend to be pretty good evidence that it is "with God." No need to point at the amount of quiet time or the involvement in meeting stuff. It must be enough if we are actually managing to do the outward stuff. Otherwise we would probably be falling flat on our faces. Meanwhile, too many still focus on getting all the "inward" stuff right and hope that it will some day manifest itself in the outward. But not a single step in that direction in the mean time.