Kingdom Culture

Hello again divinely loved of God!

Wow. At Roots Up we are going to sink our souls deep into the reality of what “beloved” means and what the work of God’s grace accomplishes in a believer in LIFE-long koinonia with other believers. Praise the Lord!

This morning I woke up thinking about cultural norms. I know huh? What a thing to think about at 4:10 am. But it’s really such a sweet pondering because God’s love blows past all social and cultural barriers and expectations and goes straight to the heart.

In fact, we’ll just say God’s love is invasive and yes, even disruptive, and of course, deeply radical. How is it that God’s love is so utterly distinctive and transforming? It’s holy spiritual and eternal! It’s not cultural!! Agapé moves across cultures at LIGHTning speed. God’s love transcends all the governing principles of this world. Praise the Lord!

The thing is, we can all find ourselves holding onto cultural norms when it comes to fellowship. Like… it’s quite easy to keep things safe and theological without ever taking those spiritual truths past the surface layer of social-niceties. It’s sort of convenient to keep truth at a safe distance. We can have a whole collection of Biblical concepts we hold as valuable, yet those truths can be unrealized in our actual experience. Oh my.

Just one look at the life of Jesus dissolves any notion that He ever bypassed an opportunity to disrupt cultural norms or someone’s personal value system when that value system kept them imprisoned in sin and isolated from God’s love. Only God can do that by means of His Spirit. And He still does this work all over the world! He moves through barriers! He sometimes crashes through cultural value systems and religious belief systems to set captives free… because God knows the extreme weight of idol worship; those constructs that lie beneath the surface that can hold us bound and taunt in slavery.

How deep does God’s deep go? Eternal, great love deep. Our Father takes us where we need to go… in the deep end of His love.

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” Romans 11:33.