Which power do you choose?

 

2026 has just started. There is a lot going on. There are a lot of things causing great concern for people across our world. It is times like this that we need to ask some critical questions of ourselves and our faith. We do not need to live in fear or wobble.

Stability is a word and a hope that our world needs right now. God’s kingdom is all about stability. God’s kingdom is where God rules and reigns in entirety in heaven. He brought this kingdom to earth in Jesus, so that we could see in person what it was all about. That’s when he chose to step down and come close to us in human form. Every word from Jesus while on earth was telling us what the kingdom is all about and how we can be a part of it. We step into it when we choose to follow Jesus and everything he represents. We get to show what it’s like here on earth by the way we live and love, and we get to bring it down onto earth as in heaven when we act on what Jesus taught us. When we die and go to heaven we will experience it in completeness. So, in the Lord’s prayer when we say, ‘Thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as in heaven’, that’s what we are talking about. That’s what Jesus taught us to do in our praying. He was giving us the very basics right there on how to live as representatives of his kingdom here on earth.

Instability is a word that our world feels like right now. The instability is brought about from people in political worldly empires trying to rule in their own power, which is not God’s power. Worldly empires are about themselves, their greed, power and control. Straight away we can see those words have nothing to do with God’s kingdom, so if we are a part of God’s kingdom, we cannot look to those earthly structures for stability or how to live. Worldly empires are not in partnership with God’s kingdom. They are in direct opposition to it. It’s oil and water and the two cannot and will not ever mix. Yes, we live within these political spaces because we live on earth, but if we follow Jesus, we need to be living according to God’s kingdom principles. That reminds me of a Scripture that says, ‘we are in this world, but not of this world.’

Worldly empire and God’s kingdom operate with different power. We need to ask ourselves what power we really want. We seem to sing about God’s power in church on Sunday and then very quickly slip into trusting in political worldly power at other times. Maybe it’s because we think we can see it better playing out in front of our eyes, I am not sure. But even the focus of the power is different. God’s power is absolute and is against evil powers that come against it. Worldly political empires are very self-focused and mostly see people as the enemies and obstacles in their way to complete dominance.

Even the weapons are completely different.

Worldly empire’s power uses force, fear, hate, lies, aggression, arrogance, coercion, boasting, abuse of power and weapons that destroy people and planet. It’s very selfish and all about winning and conquering. It’s all about excluding people and only about a few who win and gain all the wealth for themselves. They do not care about those they trample on to get there or what happens to them afterwards.

God’s kingdom power is one of servanthood, being co-workers, love, compassion, humility, thankfulness and joy. It’s also always putting him as the focus and the aim of destruction is at the evil powers, not at people or planet. It’s completely unselfish and others focused. It’s all about welcoming, including and adding people into the kingdom for their benefit, so that all can mutually flourish.

God’s Kingdom stays the same, always. Worldly political empires change all the time, depending on so many different things, but mainly because they are run by human people and their own power.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. A steadfast assurance for his followers.

Right now, we are watching international law crumble before our eyes, never to be the same again. But God’s principles remain the same. We should be standing on those principles and calling political power out when they go against them. Jesus was not silent when people practiced injustice towards anyone. If we see hurt and harm, we should not celebrate it, we should be saying that it is not okay. We should be defending the poor, the marginalised and the weak. Jesus came up against political empire the whole time he was on earth. They eventually tried to silence him in death, but we know how that ended.

When worldly political power tries to silence things like inclusion, equity and diversity and we can see those are principles in God’s kingdom, we should not be the ones jumping on the bandwagon and agreeing with empire. We should be pointing out that those concepts are dear to God’s heart and it’s what he wants us to practice in bringing his kingdom to earth.

Christ is a sure foundation. He is our solid rock. All other ground is sinking sand. Reminds me of a song many of us grew up singing – the wise man built his house upon the rock and the foolish man built his house upon the sand. So, when the rain came down and the floods came up, the house on the rock stood firm and stable and the house on the sand fell flat because of complete instability. We have a choice to make daily. Where are we going to build?

God’s kingdom is the rock. Political empire is the sand. It cannot offer anything stable. There is no surety.

We are urged to build our lives on Christ, so it must start with Jesus and the New Covenant. We can’t have our foundation from anywhere else, and we also can’t build on top of Christ with anything that is not of his kingdom. So, if we put our faith in any worldly political empire, we are building that on top of Christ. It just cannot work. He still stays the same and solid, but we muddy the waters because we can’t even see him anymore because of what we have taken onboard. We land up in confusion and think that the worldly empire now has the answers. Sometimes it comes because of fear and it looks like our fear can be relieved by trusting in the actions of the empire.

Our trust and hope can never be in a political empire. It is sinking sand. It stands in direct opposition to the kingdom of God. It’s building a golden calf to bow down to in hopes of our freedom being protected. We know the argument of separating church from state. There’s good reason for that. The two cannot be in bed together. There cannot be an alliance with oil and water and thank goodness for that. But if we convince ourselves otherwise and start believing lies and we forget to keep looking to Jesus, we will find ourselves in bed with the enemy.

It's so clear right now that we have a huge divide in the church. We have church people posting absolute opposites on social media. The political right and left is brought into many of these accusations. There are arrows flying at each other. There are nasty words being said. There is huge disagreement on big topics. It’s obvious we have a clash of kingdoms going on. Parts of the church have climbed into bed with political empire. They are trying to go against the principle of oil and water not mixing. And many comments from people saying, ‘but how can you really know what’s true.’ There has been building of other stuff on top of Christ. There are warnings in God’s word about choosing wisely and with care how you build onto your foundation. We can know what is true if we line up what we are concerned about with the kingdom of God. It’s the only sure and true starting point. We also will not get our real answers about God’s kingdom from social media, we will only find the truth of it in God’s word and in the life of Jesus.

God’s kingdom power and political empire power look very different, sound very different, use different weapons, they do different things and they have completely different outcomes. The one will benefit a few, the other will offer benefit to everyone. Let’s not get starry eyed about the political empire that looks and sounds like it has our best interests at heart when our baseline is fear. I saw a comment the other day that said, ‘people have been trained to experience equality as loss and diversity as a threat.’ That sounds like it’s been set up by political empire so they can convince people that it’s okay to climb ladders of power, it’s ok to exclude others, it’s okay to win at all costs, it’s okay to protect what you believe is yours to feather your own nest, it’s okay to fight and trample others to get ahead and to stop the threat.

It made me think in that moment to put it alongside God’s kingdom. Do we think God’s intention for the world was for us to experience things as loss or a threat? So, it doesn’t hold weight in his kingdom then to be concerned about loss and threat, especially when it is about 2 concepts that he holds highly and dearly. I mean the trinity is all about equality, inclusion and diversity. We need to remember if we want to be great in God’s kingdom we need to learn to be the servant of all.

Ultimately, we have a choice whether we want the stability of the kingdom of God to be able to live within the instability of worldly political empire or will we choose what looks powerful and mighty with a human sword? Our Prince of Peace said on several occasions to put the sword/the human weapon away. “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent any arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Even when Peter did use violence to protect Jesus, Jesus reminded him and said, ‘no more of this’. He then had compassion on the man who had been hurt (by power/violence that is not of the kingdom) and touched him and healed his ear.

May we choose to put our trust in the only person who deserves any accolade for peace in our world. May we choose Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, the Prince of Peace, from a kingdom that is not of this world but one that helps us to live for him in this world.

Pictures from St. Peter's Rainbow Village in Gqeberha