Messes To Masterpieces

The animal and plant kingdoms immediately come to mind in discussions centering on which kingdoms rule the earth. These are the two most visible and dominant.

Science has not mutually agreed on the exact number of kingdoms that do exist. The numbers vary depending on the scientific model one aspires to.  However, there is a foundational baseline within the scientific community that there are a minimum of six kingdoms that rule the earth – plants, animals, protists, fungi, archaebacteria and eubacteria.

Carbon Rules the Six Kingdoms

The six kingdoms mentioned above share a common bond, they all exist because of one earthly element, the element carbon. Carbon exists in every organic compound. Life as we know it cannot exist without its presence. Carbon atomic bonds stitch together the chemical skeletons of every protein, lipid, DNA/RNA structure and carbohydrate that are essential to life. Carbon is the basis of life in these six earthly kingdoms.

Moreover, these six kingdoms operate according to the finite laws of nature – laws whose purpose is to facilitate growth, sustain survival through reproduction, and ultimately, culminate in physical death.

These laws are “Carbon-based” – Carbon is finite, elemental, earthy and by itself – lifeless.

The food webs (“who eats who”) governing these six earthly kingdoms are regressive in that they are biased towards one finite objective – the survival of self at the expense of lower life forms. For example, a rabbit eats a plant, a snake eats the rabbit and a hawk eats the snake – I think you get the picture!

The Seventh Kingdom

However, there is another kingdom on earth that operates on an entirely more noble and grandeur plane. This kingdom’s purposes have infinite objectives and are orchestrated from the heavenly sphere. Its purposes are to preserve and enrich human life. It does this not at the expense of life forms lower than itself, but through the practice of sacrificing self to empower others like itself. This kingdom is also built upon a power on earth that supersedes all others – the power of the love of God.

And this kingdom built on the power of love could be manifested in its fullness only one way – true love expressed by the offering of a total and complete living sacrifice of one who is perfect and sinless (Jesus Christ – the perfect sacrifice) for the sake of others (the “like kind”) who are everything but perfect and sinless to the extent that they may become perfect (Mat. 5:48) and sinless (the empowerment). This is what true love is all about.

For God so loved (God’s love) the world, that he gave his only begotten Son (sacrifice), that whosoever (all humanity) believeth in him (God in humanity / flesh) should not perish, but have everlasting life (empowerment).  John3:16

And this is what the seventh kingdom is all about. I think this is going somewhere.

The Seventh Kingdom is ……  The Kingdom of God

This seventh kingdom that rules upon the earth is not commonly talked about or even taught in our educational systems today. This kingdom is predominately shunned and mocked by mainstream media and is increasingly marginalized by our judicial systems.

However, the kingdom of God is the most advanced of all the kingdoms reigning on earth. It is the highest life form on earth because its growth and purposes are orchestrated moment-by-moment, day-by-day by an omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient Creator.

A kingdom is defined by the nature of its king. Jesus Christ, not carbon, rules this seventh kingdom. Christ is eternal, carbon is finite. Christ lives, carbon is lifeless. Christ has all power, carbon has miniscule power.

Jesus Christ Rules The Seventh Kingdom

The highest kingdom, God’s kingdom, operates according to the Word and Spirit of God and are based on the love and mercy of Jesus Christ. These spiritual laws operate at the highest level because they transcend the linear laws of finite nature and are eternal in scope. God’s kingdom transcends the curse of death and offers rays of hope, love  and truth to all of humanity.

This kingdom also promotes growth, but with a different objective – the perfection of a body of believers unto the nature of Jesus Christ who is the express image of God himself (Heb 1:3).  God’s kingdom is in place for the maturation of an eternal body – the body of Christ, which is His Church he is coming back for:

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 1Cor 12:12-13

It is this body of Christ that the God of all creation marvels at and has His full attention. Why? Because this living body on earth is an extension of God Himself. It is both a natural body and a spiritual body, alive through the spirit of Jesus Christ (Rom 8:11).

That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Eph 1:10-11

For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power Col 2:9-10

The spirit of Jesus Christ is what bonds this body together.  The grace, mercy and love of Jesus is sufficient for members of the body to work together, grow together and to be the true worshipers of God:

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:  From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. Eph 4:15-16 

The highest eternal laws of God are “Christ-based” – Christ is eternal.

Only that which is rooted and founded on the God-man, Jesus Christ, will endure time and have significance in eternity. Carbon life forms perish and through the passage of time will cease to exist. God’s laws are progressive in that they are biased towards an eternal objective through divine omniscience:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Jeremiah 29:11

Did you read that? Not an uncertain end, a hopeless end or a “dead end”, but an expected end.

Jesus has come to restore humanity back to God’s original plan. The first man Adam failed. The last Adam, Jesus Christ, has come to make all things new and bridge the gulf between humanity that is sinful and spiritually bankrupt to a new life that has hope, peace and purpose.

Only Christ Infuses Life

In our unregenerated, sinful state we are nothing more than jars of carbon in the sight of God. Why? Because the word of God says so:

Like the plant kingdom …

Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.  For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Psalm 37:1-2

And the animal kingdom …

But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away. Psalm 37:20 

It is only through the regeneration of the life of Jesus Christ in us that we escape sin’s dominion over our carnal-based (carbon-based?) nature and live. Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

The first Adam offers no hope, the last Adam offers eternal life. Jn 3:16
The first Adam is dead, the last Adam lives for evermore. Jn 4:14
The first Adam is natural, the last Adam is spiritual. I Cor 15:-46
The first Adam is earthy, the last Adam is heavenly. I Cor 15:-47-48
The first Adam is earthbound, the last Adam is heaven bound. I Cor 15:49

The first Adam was carbon-centered, the last Adam is Christ-centered.

Are We Looking Forward or Looking Backward?

Is it not strange that most attention today is directed toward where we have come from (the past) and not where we are going (the future)? Is the human condition so pitifully disoriented that it has lost all sense of destiny and eternal consciousness?

May the God of heaven help us to look up and desire to peer into the things eternal which will never pass away:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. Revelation 21:4-5

So, which is the better choice – Christ or Carbon?