Michael Hindes

Living in the Now

One morning last week I had coffee with an incredible young man. In fact six-seven mornings a week you can find me having coffee with incredible young men and women. It’s kinda what I do - disciple, coach, pastor. I’m not really sure what you’d call it. We normally discuss life, spirituality, character, family, the past, dreams, fears. And together we try to find some answers to the old familiar nagging questions.

But something got in my spirit a week ago that has pestered me ever since. I’m not sure who first said it, how they said it, or who clarified what was said. But here it is - “Kingdom living is about living in the now”. No biggie right? No great revelation here? Except for the fact I can’t shake it…

Most “regular” people live in the past - past hurts, past failures, past rejections, even a few past successes. Most are usually so tethered to their pasts that it takes a lot of intentional work to help them walk free.

Then there’s “church” people, who rather than dwelling on the past, choose to focus on the future. Not the near future, not the plans for their lives and families, but the distant future - “the sweet by and by”. The rougher the economy, the more the Middle East is in the news, the more social issues get resolved by “those liberals”, and the more “us conservatives” lose our political strongholds - the more I hear talk about rapture and heaven.

I read about it all over Facebook and hear about it regularly from family and friends. This “future focus” really bothers me. Although, I’m not really concerned that I’ll miss my heavenly future, I’m really concerned that they’ll miss their heavenly present.

Christians get caught between these two things - their past with its defeats and their future with its triumph. Although my eschatology isn’t as it use to be, I still believe in something awesome and spectacular beyond this life. But my focus on heaven today is about worshipping Him rather than any reward, accolade, or escape I might step into…

Thought: to only focus on the distant future in order to overcome the pain of our not so distant past, does absolutely nothing about influencing others in the present.

Remember, “Kingdom living is about living in the NOW”.

Let’s end this by looking at Jesus’s perspective - “Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow… (Matt 6:33-34 Message)

Be the Hands and Feet of the Kingdom’s Expansion

This week’s guest post is written by Matt Snyder - enjoy…

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Sometimes I don’t feel like I realize the boldness in what I pray, and then there are other times that I do and I start to sweat because I realize the brunt of what I’m praying.

When I worked at AIM, nearly every Monday morning I stood in the office with the rest of the staff and we worshipped. After worship we’d stand together and declare truths over our lives, things like, “I will walk in ever-increasing health; I have ideas and divine strategies; I will uproariously laugh when I hear a lie from the devil; etc.”.

Those are great things to declare – seriously.

But then we declared other things like, “today I will have divine appointments to heal the sick, raise the dead, prophesy life, to lead people to Christ, and to bless every place that I go.”

That’s a pretty hefty statement.

And I have to admit that I hadn’t really given it too much thought until I asked myself if those words were escaping my heart also.

In praying/declaring something like that, I can’t expect that all of these divine appointments are going to land in my lap, right? I mean, I suppose that they could, but by me declaring these things to be, I’m also “prophesying” that I’m going to get outside of my comfort zone and step into someplace new.

I don’t always want to do that because I have a routine to my day and I absolutely hate disturbing my routine. I wake up, spend time with Jesus, work, eat lunch, work some more, think about working out, work a little more, eat dinner, hang out, call my girlfriend, and go to bed.

Excuse me, Jesus, but I don’t see where I can fit others into my schedule conveniently!

It’s a terrible attitude to have, but I don’t think I’m the only person with it. I see it reflected in the Church at large. We’ve conveniently put up safeguards to protect us from having to truly demonstrate compassion-in-action, from giving the world an encounter with the awesome power of God’s love.

We surround ourselves with Christians who “have it all together” and talk about the world “out there”. We never truly penetrate it – we just talk about it.

We’re a bunch of fakes.

If I’m declaring that I’m going to heal the sick, raise the dead, prophesy life, lead people to Christ, and to bless every place… I might have to go hunt some of that down. I have to reach my hands out and touch people – people I don’t know – and minister to them. I’ve got to be the hands and feet of the Kingdom’s expansion.

And maybe the reason why I don’t declare those things every day is that I don’t want to get over myself long enough to love outside of myself. Maybe that’s the problem.

Can we change something? Let’s begin prophesying from the heart. Let’s stop talking about healing the sick and just do it already. Let’s stop thinking about living prophetically and just freakin’ live prophetically NOW! And the next time you’re somewhere uncomfortable, make yourself at home by ushering in the Kingdom of God around you.