Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good evening, dear ones.

I guess I got so carried away with other stuff that I again failed to get this off this morning.

The final count on the kittens is—drum roll—can you believe it?!—ELEVEN! Have you ever known of a kitten litter that large? I went on line and learned that the average number in a litter is 4 to 6. Just for fun, I’ll attach a photo that I just took a few minutes ago. Thano took it upon himself to load up all the babies in a box and place it here in my studio. I guess I’m now the in-and-out overseer. We need to be looking into having her fixed. It could be taxing to keep repeating this wonderful fiasco. One of our friends suggested fitting her with a chastity belt.

Sleep tight. Love, Dad/Ray.

There is clearly a huge spectrum of perspective, opinion, and bias within the Body of Christ. And the challenger we face in dealing with it all is equally huge. Sorting out all the differences between ESSENTIAL and NONESSENTIAL is not easy. But the difficulty is minimized by our grasping and understanding the BOTTOM LINE ESSENTIALS of the Kingdom of God. Paul clearly states three of them here for us—like a three-point checklist—“righteousness, peace, and joy.” Don’t let this get by you. They can serve as a valuable filter for examining your own life course, as well as processing just about every conflict that arises within the Church.

I’m going to attempt my own expanded paraphrase of this verse: “Those who truly get to participate in the full benefits of God’s plans and purposes do so, not because of their great opinions and preferences, or because of their Christian DOING, or even because they have developed a wonderfully precise theology—but because of their Christian BEING—a HEART AFTER GOD that reveals itself in both attitudes and behavior—the same way that the specie and quality of a tree is demonstrated and confirmed by its fruit. The essential fruit of God’s Kingdom begins with RIGHTEOUSNESS (right relationship with God by loving Him, right relationship with others by loving them, and right response to His Word by obeying and seeking). This status will yield the accompanying benefits of PEACE (a calm of heart, truly trusting in the Sovereign Lord) and JOY (such an internal delight, excitement, and passion over the awesome privilege of this relationship that it permeates every part of one’s life in ways that cannot be hidden). These are not the products of shear human effort, but, in fact, results from the inner workings of God’s Holy Spirit.”

May I suggest that, in personal and practical terms, you need to give careful attention to your own paraphrase of this verse. Of course, I’ll allow you to ditto mine. But however you slice it, please accept it for what it claims to be—a BOTTOM LINE ESSENTIAL of the Kingdom of God.