LIVING IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD JULY 3, 2025

 LIVING IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD JULY 3, 2025

 

July greetings to all the lovely Saints in every corner of God’s vineyard,

 

Does anyone remember the old song, “Sixteen Tons?” You are telling your age if you do as it was written in 1946, but that is beside the point. There are a few lines in the song that we might want to look at.”Saint Peter, don’t you call me, cause I can’t go. I owe my soul to the company store.”

 

The lyrics are not scripturally correct, as is the case with secular songs and even some religious hymns, but prompts us to ask ourselves, here at the midpoint of 2025 and approaching another Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, to whom or what do we “Owe our souls?” I’m sure every “Christian” in the world would quickly say, “God, of course.” However, the quick answer is not always the real answer. The real answer is in our heart which is reflected in our daily life. The whole ministry of Jesus Christ was and still is to show us that we can be friends of our Lord rather than slaves to the world.

 

Who are the ones to be blessed in the Beatitudes? Those who believe on him, come down into the depths of humility, are baptized in his name and receive the Holy Ghost, those who come unto Him and are poor in spirit, those who truly mourn due to their sins, those who are meek, hunger and thirst after righteousness, are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, those who are persecuted and reviled for his name’s sake. All these things plus many more are what defines who owns our souls.

 

A ministry of music sang at Waldo Avenue RB last Sunday, taken from Joshua 24 where Joshua is challenging them Israelites before going into the Promise Land. He reminded them of all God’s blessings and then told them to choose that day whom they would serve. His response was “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” The immediate response of the Israelites was, basically, “Of course, we will serve the Lord.” You know the rest of the story. They did not serve God except when they got themselves in trouble, then they cried out to God. Many of us are just like the Israelites. We say one thing and do another. Thus, Zion waits. Thus we still wait for “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

 

I was shaken in my complacency last week in a small group meeting when a person mentioned Earl Curry’s “Endowment “ experience in 1957. She wanted to know when the priesthood were going to do something about it. While a significant part of it refers to the priesthood, it also involves all those who

anticipate, yet are waiting, for “The Endowment.” We each have a role to play in the fulfillment of God’s kingdom on earth, now and later.

 

In the Endowment experience, God made some statements that should have really caught our attention in 1957, surely in 1984, or 2001, but definitely in 2025. In question 1, “When shall the day of marvelous Spiritual Endowment be?” “Endowment COULD come to the church surely within ten years (1967) and even less: IF God’s people will make themselves aware of the world’s great need, IF they will become aware of the church’s desperate need for mighty spiritual power, and IF they will go up to the mountain of the Lord’s House.”

 

A line from the hymn, “A Calm and Gentle Quiet” by David Smith, reminds us, “We must not wait, FOR NOW the time is OURS. And if I wait, another waits for me…”

 

God bless

Paul Gage