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The Kingdom of God...

             But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. (Matthew 12:28)

 

            The Pharisees and Sadducees considered themselves guardians and teachers of the people. If someone claimed to do miracles, they thought it their job to investigate. And they were right in a way. We should all investigate such things if they happen around us and be legitimately skeptical. Logically, they assumed that most of their investigation was either trickery or demonic. Prophets of the Most High God were never plentiful, and God even warned the Jews to be cautious about who they trusted. The problem is that they assumed that anyone sent by the Most High God would agree with them and what they did. When Jesus came along, He didn’t quite meet their standards.

            Jesus challenges them. It didn’t make as much sense that he would drive out demons if he was a demon. Yes, it could have been some elaborate trick, but there was another explanation that they didn’t seem willing to consider: that He was doing this by the Spirit of God. If so, there was someone in their midst who was doing what God wanted him to do, in the way God wanted him to do it. In other words, someone was operating within the range of God’s effective will, as made clear by its success.

            I’m not saying that the kingdom of God being upon us means we’ll cast out demons. We certainly will, if that is God’s will, but the key is that the kingdom is upon us if and when someone is doing what God would do if God were that person – if they are doing God’s will effectively (not just talking about it.) Consider (just for a moment) a sort of duality in Jesus. As the Son of God, He sought out and divinely arranged appointments with people He then helped. They weren’t aware of the schedule, but He was. As the man named Jesus, He sought the guidance of the Father and obediently did what He saw to do.

            The Son of God and Jesus were one, but if we return to the idea of imitating Him, there are several things to consider here. It isn’t “What would I do in this situation if I were God?” It is “What would God do if God were me, facing what I am facing, with my limitations?” While our immediate reaction to this question is to point out that God doesn’t have our limitations, that doesn’t mean He can’t operate – when He chooses – within our limitations. That’s the cool thing about being omnipotent.  If you can do anything you want to, you don’t have to do everything you can do.

            It all boils down to what Jesus told them. If we do something by the Spirit of God, no matter what that thing is, the kingdom of God has come upon us.

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