{"id":43,"date":"2008-02-17T01:38:42","date_gmt":"2008-02-17T08:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/17\/43\/"},"modified":"2011-06-28T14:01:09","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T12:01:09","slug":"kingdom-suffers-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/kingdom-suffers-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kingdom Suffers Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ArticleBody\"><em>This\u00a0is a blog posted by Seth Barnes,\u00a0on\u00a0his site, \u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sethbarnes.com\/index.asp?filename=the-kingdom-of-god-suffers-violence\"><em>Radical Living &#8211; In a Comfortable World<\/em><\/a><em>.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll let you read it, and I ask you to pray for strength for the leaders of AIM and The World Race.\u00a0 The battle rages on.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"ArticleBody\">Consider this. In the last couple of days: <\/span><span class=\"ArticleBody\"><\/span><span class=\"ArticleBody\"><\/span><span class=\"ArticleBody\"><\/span><span class=\"ArticleBody\"><\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>World Racer <a href=\"http:\/\/sarahlapp.theworldrace.org\/index.asp?filename=bio\">Sarah Lapp<\/a> got word while in Africa that her mother had suddenly contracted an aggressive cancer &#8211; she had to be put on the next plane home.<\/li>\n<li>World Racer <a href=\"http:\/\/christinechapman.theworldrace.org\/index.asp?filename=bio\">Christine Chapman&#8217;s<\/a> pregnant sister was tragically <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/news\/city\/arlington\/stories\/021008dnmetarlingtonfatal.a77ad227.html\">killed by a drunk driver<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theworldrace.org\/\">World Race<\/a> coach <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelhindes.theworldrace.org\/\">Michael Hindes<\/a> came down with an extremely painful case of kidney stones just prior to his departure to debrief our team in Peru. He flew there anyway. Arriving in Peru, he didn&#8217;t connect with his contact, Bob Cooley, because Bob had been hit with a case of kidney stones too.<\/li>\n<li>A key AIM staff person just made a terrible mistake jeopardizing 15 years of ministry. Unfortunately, when leaders make mistakes, it impacts so many others. Another leader is flying there at 6:40 a.m. this morning.<\/li>\n<li>My brother-in-arms <a href=\"http:\/\/garyblack.myadventures.org\/\">Gary Black<\/a> and his family is being kicked out of Swaziland because of visa complications, leaving us understaffed to care for a thousand orphans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s past midnight as I type these words and my spirit is still digesting what all this means.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"200\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sethbarnes.com\/blogphotos\/sethbarnes\/www\/violence.jpg\" \/>There is this provocative passage in the gospel of Luke where in one version* Jesus, talking to his disciples about John the Baptist says, &#8220;The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and violent men take it by force.&#8221; To which I say &#8211; what does <\/span><span style=\"font-style: italic\">that<\/span> mean?**<\/p>\n<p>But in my life, I can relate to violence striking at those in my sphere of influence. Whether it&#8217;s just random stuff happening, or whether it&#8217;s really people within the kingdom of God who are being targeted in a particular way, people I know are suffering violence.<\/p>\n<p>To be human is to encounter pain. We come into the world screaming, recoiling against it, and many of us will leave the world fighting it. And in between, God&#8217;s enemy, who hates his creation, will do everything in his power to bring violence our way. He has targeted us for pain. If we are a threat to the existing order (in which he exercises control), then we have a bullseye painted on our back.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is, we don&#8217;t have to go whimpering into the night. We are more than conquerors. Somehow, in God&#8217;s economy, we&#8217;re called to resist the enemy of our souls and fight back &#8211; to get some violence in our spirit.<\/p>\n<p>My mentor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.andrewshearman.com\/\">Andrew Shearman<\/a> calls it &#8220;getting a spirit of violence.&#8221; We need to get angry and shout a bit at the forces of hell. Do a gut check and if you have difficulty fighting the accuser of the brethren, this would probably be a good day to make the following declaration, serving notice to the one who wants to wreck your life:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Look, hell, you may have taken my loved one away. You may have robbed me of something I held dear. You may have marked me for destruction, but I sure as heck (go ahead and say &#8220;hell&#8221; if you&#8217;re feeling particularly righteous) am not going to sit here and take it! I am going to fight you for what God has given me. Society may place a premium on being nice and looking proper, but I don&#8217;t have any more room in my life for nice! I will fight you tooth and nail for what is mine, and furthermore, now that you&#8217;ve riled me up, I will exact a price for this. Where I&#8217;ve been complacent, I will start putting on the Ephesians 6 armor. Where I&#8217;ve been passive, I will start praying warfare prayers. Instead of sleeping in, I&#8217;m going to start getting up early and praising God. I&#8217;ve had it &#8211; I&#8217;m not going to sit still any longer! I know there&#8217;s a warrior&#8217;s spirit in me somewhere, and I intend to summon it up!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is not a prayer so much as it is a jolt of spiritual caffeine for your sleepy spiritual self that needs to slapped into a state wakefulness. And when you&#8217;re awake, start living in a way that truly does violence to the enemy camp. This is not weird or overly dramatic behavior &#8211; this is you waking up to your identity and to spiritual reality. It&#8217;s what normal Jesus followers struggling to navigate in this cynical world do.<\/p>\n<p>And after you&#8217;re done declaring and praying and snorting or whatever, here&#8217;s how you continue the fight: Apologize to a few people you&#8217;ve offended. Hold an orphan, or sponsor one at least. Go visit some widows in a senior citizen&#8217;s home. Write a blog that tries to rile people up like this one. Turn off the TV. For God&#8217;s sake and for your own, do something!<br \/>\n<br style=\"font-style: italic\" \/><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Continued in: <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sethbarnes.com\/index.asp?filename=and-the-violent-take-it-by-force\" style=\"font-style: italic\">&#8230;And the violent take it by force<\/a><\/p>\n<p>*NASB (<span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Matt. <\/span>11:12)<\/p>\n<p>**I used to think I knew. There&#8217;s another version that renders it differently: &#8220;the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing\u2026&#8221; I like that better. Maybe it was the macho rebel in me, like Peter, is spoiling for a fight. Now, I realize, I don&#8217;t really know exactly what Jesus had in mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This\u00a0is a blog posted by Seth Barnes,\u00a0on\u00a0his site, \u00a0Radical Living &#8211; In a Comfortable World.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll let you read it, and I ask you to pray for strength for the leaders of AIM and The World Race.\u00a0 The battle rages on. Consider this. In the last couple of days: World Racer Sarah Lapp got word [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1131,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions\/1131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}