8 Things You Don’t Know About the Kingdom of Heaven

Turning points!

1: The Kingdom of Heaven Means Letting Go Of Our Stories “Every one of us has an agenda when it comes to how we choose to live,” writes Delvaux. “We think we know perfectly well what we need in life, whether it’s fame, fortune, happiness, or success. Further, we are determined to find a way to get it. Our agenda here sets in motion the choices we make which become the storyline of our lives. But the choices that seem to work awhile eventually run us aground. For years, I lived with the storyline of never failing in front of others. It worked, or so I thought. I became known as a very good teacher and coach, but it never drove the fear away. Instead, it just made it more controlling. Jesus told us that the kingdom of heaven must be first, that the story God wants to write in our lives is much better than any story we could ever write for ourselves. He put it this way: ‘”f anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’ (Mark 8:34). We must let go of our stories and enter the story of this kingdom.”

Turning points!

2: The Kingdom of Heaven Means Letting Go of Our Idols “When we try to write the story of our own lives,” writes Landmarks author Bill Delvaux, “we write in certain props in that story to help us out. We trust them to meet our needs and comfort us in our pain. These props function as substitutes for God himself. The Bible calls them idols. Today we tend to call them addictions, but the point is basically the same. We don’t want to trust God with the unknowns of life or with the deep longings of our hearts. So we turn to other things that will help us out, whether it is something respectable, like ambition or approval, or something less respectable like substance abuse or pornography. But whatever idol we choose will eventually fail us. They will first seduce us and then crush us, leaving us worse off than before. Jesus tells us to come to him instead for the rest we never found in idols: ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest’ (Matt. 11:28).”

Turning points!

3: The Kingdom of Heaven Means Learning to Forgive Delvaux continues: We have all been wounded by others in life, some of us in terrible ways. The stories of abuse and abandonment I have personally heard are heart-wrenching. Our tendency is to either bury the wound so that it doesn’t need to be dealt with or to stay angry and seek revenge. Both of these maneuvers not only keep the wound unhealed, but also perpetuate it on others. This is the reason why abused children will often grow up and abuse their own children. When we come to Jesus and the kingdom of heaven, he asks us to do something surprising, to forgive those who have sinned against us: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12). This means owning the wound and grieving it, but then refusing to hold it against the offender. Such a maneuver leads to another surprise: we are set free from the wound in such a way that God can heal us. This was certainly the case with my own father and our fractured relationship for many years. Forgiving him has allowed my heart to connect with him now in ways that would have once seemed impossible.

Turning points!

4: The Kingdom of Heaven Means Pursuing Radical Sexual Purity “Today’s culture is not just characterized by sexual brokenness writes Delvaux. “It’s sexual insanity. We all know stories of tragedy and heartbreak concerning sex, whatever flavor or type of sexual behavior is involved. Sadly, sex was meant to be one of the most beautiful things in our lives, an expression of love between a man and a woman, as well as a reflection of God’s desire to be united to his people. But what was meant for such beauty now causes such destruction. That’s because sex often functions as the great idol or as the place of great wounding. But whatever we are looking for in sex can never be found there. Jesus told the story of a son that left his father for a life of drinking and sex (Luke 15:11-32). He ended up starving and eventually came back home, expecting a lecture from his father. What he got was a passionate embrace. The kingdom of heaven tells us that we must let go of our sexual impurity and come home to the Father’s love.”

Turning points!

5: The Kingdom of Heaven Means Finding Our True Identity “We all sense that we have somehow lost our true identity,” writes Delvaux. “For me it was a running question from early adolescence. Yet it’s a question we all have to answer, for every day, in one way or another, we live out who we think we are. Yet when we try to discover out identity, we usually listen to voices that further confuse us. We can listen to voices of shame from those who have condemned us. Their criticism can feel like a crushing sentence of death. We can also listen to the voices of affirmation based on performance. We then have to keep the performance going to keep the praise coming, an exhausting treadmill. Sometimes there is no voice at all to hear, so we feel void and worthless inside. But the kingdom of heaven says that we are treasured sons and daughters of God through Jesus (I John 3:1). We need to listen to the voice of God. Only he knows who we really are. Feeling his delight in us is how we begin to learn our true identity in the kingdom.”

Turning points!

6: The Kingdom of Heaven Means Learning to Fight “Once we begin to discover our true identity, many things start to change,” writes Delvaux. “But one of the most important of them is waking up to the terrible battle against evil, both in us and around us. Ultimately it is the battle against the evil one himself, the devil. We begin to realize how much of the assault against our true identity was laced with poison from Satan himself. His strategy for attack uses accusation, then deception, and finally temptation. We can be literally sickened and run down by his schemes. Jesus tells us that Satan is the father of lies, and so we are to pray: ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one’ (Matt. 6:13). But the kingdom of heaven also means learning to fight the enemy. We are told to stand on the truth on God’s Word and not yield to the lies Satan has been telling us. If we persist in standing, the Bible tells us that he must eventually flee.”

Turning points!

7: The Kingdom of Heaven Means Bonding to Jesus Delvaux continues: We long for many things in this life, but one of the most powerful aches is our longing to connect to others. The need to bond is behind our friendships and romances, our marriages and our families. So much of life depends on our ability to bond to others in a life-giving way. One of my core issues lay right here because I had lived so disconnected from others. When we begin to follow Jesus, he doesn’t put that longing aside. He just tells us that the ultimate bond is to be with him. As a branch stays connected to the vine, so we he tells us to do the same: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you” (John 15:4). We are invited back into the bond from which all creation came. And out of that bonding, the kingdom of heaven becomes a reality in our own hearts. The Father literally takes up residence inside of us. Further as we learn the feel for this vertical bonding with Jesus, we learn how to horizontally bond to others, openly and without shame.

Turning points!

8: The Kingdom of Heaven Means the Healing of Marriage “We all take on marriage out of desire, a desire of love, for intimacy, for a soul mate,” writes Delvauxin Landmarks: Turning Points on Your Journey Toward God. Yet every marriage experiences the disappointment of that desire, sometimes in a crushing way. Left untended, this disappointment becomes the root of so many miserable and broken marriages. Yet when we begin to understand and walk out the first seven ideas about the kingdom of heaven, something extraordinary begins to happen. We become a person with whom an extraordinary marriage is possible. We become extraordinary men and women. And this can happen whether our spouse comes with us or not, or whether we are single or divorced. For the greatest gift of the kingdom of heaven is not a successful marriage. The greatest gift is the redemption that Jesus died to bring about (II Cor. 5:21). That’s what can make us extraordinary, and that’s what can heal marriages. It has certainly been the healing of my own marriage.”