bethanyhenderson.com

[Written July 29, 2017]

I’m lying here in my bed in Germany and I can’t fall asleep. My mind is racing about all I’ve learned so far in Herrnhut at Kerusso, especially this past week regarding Kingdom worldview. 

This week my mind has been unusually reflective. I’m usually very GO-GO-GO when it comes to life–I don’t often slow down for long to look back at what has brought me to this moment. I’m so thankful to finally embrace the rhythm of reflection and begin to process how the Father has never stopped pursuing me, even in my life’s most chaotic seasons. 

If I’m honest, these past three years since my DTS (Discipleship Training School) in India have been full of radical highs and deep lows. I’m only now playing catch-up in my heart to fully realize and understand Holy Spirit’s constant hand in everything and my flesh’s weakest. 

While I’ve been at Kerusso, Jesus has been completely unraveling me. I thought my old nature was left behind in India when I got baptized three years ago, but now I’m beginning to understand that living according to the new self is not simply the immediate after-effect of a symbolic ritual. Rather, it’s the conscious and consistent choice to submit oneself to the Holy Spirit. The new self doesn’t simply end at the event of baptism, the new self is being renewed each day by Jesus IN US.

I have struggled to find Jesus’ purpose for me in university since 2014. I’ve declared my major and anxiously changed it countless times. I’ve had intense decision-phobia. I was always so afraid of going against what I believed God’s plans for me were in university and in life. But by being here in Germany, I’m deeply reminded of His glorious character and my unhinged identity, and that no matter my choices, He loves me (Psalm 62:8). 

I’ve learned and accepted that I am God’s BELOVED daughter. The Father has adopted me from my old self and sent His only beloved Son, Jesus, into the world to repay the legal debt of darkness, claimed by Satan since the Fall of Man–Jesus, the most glorious man and the Father’s perfect representation of Himself (Isaiah 53:3-5).

Jesus, whose Spirit lives in me and who my restless soul can find its identity in. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament Jewish Law, set in place by Moses. Moses received the Law after he led God’s people out of Egypt and out of slavery (Exodus 31:18). The entire Bible and its Old Testament prophecies POINT to Jesus’ coming and the world’s anticipation and need for a Saviour (Isaiah 59:20, Acts 13:38-9, Romans 11:26-27).

Jesus is born to a virgin in Bethlehem when the Roman Empire is at its height and submits Himself to the Father’s purpose for His earthly life as a young adult. Jesus is the innocent sacrificial lamb, condemned to die a traitor’s death to a world bound to darkness and deception, ruled over by the Prince of Darkness, Satan himself.

God loved His earth deeply at the beginning of Creation as recorded in Genesis. But the serpent persuaded Eve to question her perfect relationship with God and her husband Adam by deceitfully convincing her that if she ate from the Tree of Good and Evil, she would become like God (and henceforth man would not need God) (Genesis 3:4-5).

So the world fell from its perfect relationship with God, and sin entered into it. And because God is not sin in His very nature, there was an irreversible separation between man and God because man fell from his original sinless design into Satan’s deceitful grip. God’s solution for this separation was Jesus Christ, His very Son.

But a legal debt to sin had to be paid, so the Word became flesh and Jesus chose to pay the penalty of death; purchasing back humanity from Satan’s hold since the Fall of Man (John 1:14). Jesus’ death and RESURRECTION restored the relationship between man and Father God and there was no more a separation of sin but a restoration of God’s ORIGINAL design for mankind: to be in a loving and intimate relationship with Him. 

Sadly, the church has been preaching Gnosticism for so long that people forget Jesus’ TRUE purpose for dying for the sins of the world on the cross: it wasn’t only for eternal life. Eternal life and going to heaven is part of Christ’s sacrifice, but it’s a byproduct of the former: that Jesus came to earth to establish His KINGDOM. The real Kingdom message is not about going to heaven, it’s not about protecting oneself in a self-righteous “Christian” bubble from the big nasty world. That’s not Kingdom and that’s not Jesus.

The Kingdom is bringing HEAVEN DOWN and setting captives free, praying healing for the sick and injured; it’s loving widows and orphans and providing for the poor and giving hope to the hopeless (James 1:27). Preaching that Jesus came to die on the cross for the forgiveness of sins is PART of God’s purpose but it was not THE purpose.

Jesus died so that HEAVEN COULD COME DOWN to earth and that Jesus’ Kingdom could be established as originally intended since it’s literal Genesis (Hebrews 1:8). From earth, all will be reconciled at Jesus’ return. Until then, the Father gives us the Holy Spirit as our Helper; our conduit of relational intimacy with Him.

This week, I finally found peace regarding my purpose in university. I have loved History ever since I was little. And ever since I was baptized by the Holy Spirit when I was 17, I had a growing interest and passion for God’s History. I used to think History was the study of sin. NOT AT ALL! The world will be entangled in sin until the sons and daughters of God realize their glorious inheritance and declare it over their old nature: eternally cutting off the old self by choosing the new self, which is being renewed each day in the image of our Creator (Romans 12:2).

Jesus has OVERCOME and has broken the curse of sin and darkness over us on the cross. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He declared that the world’s debt to darkness had been completely paid and our relationship with the Father was irreversibly restored (John 19:30). God raised Jesus from the grave three days through the power of Holy Spirit, who is Jesus’ very Spirit, freely given to me and EVERYONE who believes in Him (John 3:34)!

I love History because it’s God’s Story and it reveals His glory since the beginning of time. Satan has been at work in the world since the Fall to create death and destruction, deceitfully crafting hopelessness on this earth. Satan’s work is found in the atrocities of war, in the corruption of the medieval Church, the colonization and subjugation of numerous peoples by imperial powers; mankind’s darkest manifestations (John 3:19). But God’s glory has never stopped persisting and insisting the Good in people, His very sons and daughters (Galatians 4:7). 

I love History because I, like the Father, am a storyteller. Indeed, History is God’s master narrative. It’s the story of the Father pursuing personal relationship with His children since time immemorial. For who have said “Yes” to Him, we have seen so much splendour and breakthrough throughout the ages. There has been immense evil due to the broken nature of our sinful world, but there has also been immense redemption. And there always will be redemption. Studying History enables me to understand God’s character ever deeper. History, in its essence, analyzes God’s pursuit for His lost children since the beginning of time; much like His pursuit of Israel in the Old Testament.

Satan has been defeated since the cross and He is powerless to Jesus (1 Peter 3:18, James 4:7). Sin is innately woven into the fabrics of our fallen nature and while we are bound to our earthly bodies, we will be vulnerable to sin and the desires of our flesh. But we can rejoice with hope! Because Jesus will always overcome evil with good. He is the True King of the world and he has given us an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to know the difference between good and evil and learn to rhythmically choose our new nature out of our great love for Him (Romans 12:21).

Kerusso has been good to my heart, friends.

Stay stoked in our King, because he LOVES you and has glorious Truth for your life. His Kingdom is woven into the fabric of your very heart and the redemptive nature of our world (2 Corinthians 3:3).

xx Beth