Your calling – serve the kingdom of heaven

Vishal Mangalwadi asks, “Did Jesus ask us to pray that we might go to heaven, or that the kingdom of heaven might come to this earth?”[1] God is on a mission and this mission is that His kingdom would come to this earth. His kingdom is where His will is done on earth as it is already done in heaven. His will is that truth, goodness (righteousness) and beauty would prevail. Corruption and all of its harm and destructive effects on people and the earth is not God’s will.

God calls us to join Him in His kingdom mission – starting in our own lives.

Of this calling, Mangalwadi writes,

It is right to be concerned with the flaws in our society, but the cross calls us, first of all, to come to terms with our own flaws and transgressions. We (human beings) are more important to God than our social structures.[2]

We must repent and ask for forgiveness for the sins that we have committed. Then we must go on to receive God’s Holy Spirit so that we may live by his law. … God’s law is summed up in the command to love God with all our being and to love our neighbor as ourself.[3]

Mangalwadi goes on to say,

Corruption survives by fear, the fear of loss, the fear of not having, the fear of shame, of physical harm, and most supremely the fear of martyrdom and death. Therefore, a person cannot reform his community unless he is willing to transcend his community by surrendering to God alone… The cross is a rejection of the world and a giving of oneself to God for the world, in order to serve the world.”[4]

Choosing the cross is a matter of knowing God well enough to trust Him.

Standing against corruption in your own life, in the lives of those around you, and in your society requires a Holy Spirit empowerment that goes beyond miracles and signs and tongues. Mangalwadi writes, “The transformation that the Holy Spirit brought about in the disciples was to strengthen them to take up their cross in a confrontation with the kingdom of Satan.”[5]

What changed at Pentecost was not the disciples’ ability to do signs and wonders: the 72 had already been sent out to heal the sick and returned saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”(see Luke 10) No, what changed was that a fearful group of disciples now had courage and power to take up their cross in a confrontation with the kingdom of Satan so that the kingdom of heaven might come to the lives of those around them and to this earth.  In the end, this is the answer to corruption.

The same Holy Spirit indwells every believer. He guides us into all that is true. In all that is difficult, He enables us. In virtue, in patience and courage, we can resist corruption. And every small resistance will contribute to the eventual transformation of a society. May it be so.

• Dwight Vogt

[1] Mangalwadi, 256

[2] Ibid, 258

[3] Ibid, 259

[4] Ibid, 252

[5] Ibid, 256

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