In Pursuit of Kingdom Living

By Dr. Arno Steen Andreasen

This book is a manifesto for church life and Christian living. It is a book that will challenge what we believe and how we live. The book wrestles with key passages in the Bible and offers principles for a just spirituality.

The book comes out of practice and reflection. Arno has been training leaders, pastors and missionaries for many years combined with his experience as a church leader, a local pastor and being the overseer of an international network of churches.

The book offers an alternative to a superficial faith that leads to bog standard answers. Instead, Arno encourages us all to have a good look at the context of each passage and to evaluate it in the light of the life and ministry of Jesus. Church life as well as Christian living becomes life transforming when what we believe and what we do look and sound like Jesus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512760675

Dr. Arno Steen Andreasen

Dr. Arno Steen Andreasen has been a Managing Director for over 25 years and a pastor for more than 20 years at the time of writing (2016). He is a Community Activist, Lecturer, Author, Logotherapist, Nutrition Therapist, Birkman Consultant and a Strength Coach. Arno believes in liberating people and communities from all levels of oppression and injustices no matter if it is self-inflicted, spiritual or structural. He is passionate about challenging the way things are done by applying liberating research and theology to life. He is excited about developing thought provoking training programmes and creating churches and ministries to reflect Jesus’s radical approach to life.

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Copyright © 2016 Dr. Arno Steen Andreasen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6068-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6069-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6067-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016917229

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/24/2016

Contents

Endorsements

Dedication

Before we start

1 - Something to live for – something to die for – Luke 4:14-30

2 - The law of attraction – Isaiah 58

3 - Post-traumatic growth – Luke 10:25-37

4 - The deceptive enemy – 1 Samuel 17:1-53

5 - Resourceful living – Proverbs 31

6 - When God does not make sense – Job 29

7 - When heaven touches earth – Psalm 82

8 - All-member ministry – Romans 12:1-8

9 - A universe bending towards inclusion – Matthew 25:31-46

10 - First things first – Haggai 1-2

11 - Creating an alternative community – Acts 2:40-47

12 - Threats to the common union – 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

13 - Baptism and the New World Order – Mark 16:16, Luke 3:21-22, Acts 2:37-41, Luke 3:7-14, Galatians 3:24-29

Bibliography

About the author

Acknowledgements

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All Scripture quotations in this publications are from The Message. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from the New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) Copyright © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.

Scripture is taken from GOD’S WORD®, © 1995 God’s Word to the Nations. Used by permission of Baker Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked TPT are taken from The Passion Translation TM, copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015. Used by permission of 5 Fold Media, LLC, Syracuse, NY 13039, United States of America. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated.

Endorsements

Drawing on a number of Biblical texts, this book seeks to bring them together in a holistic way to get to the heart of God’s mission as embodied in the ministry of Jesus, a ministry of inclusion not condemnation. Christ never promised us an easy life but a changed one.

Written in a clear and accessible way, Arno looks at the cues and clues we find in the Bible to give us a pattern for living that changed life. Working in partnership with God, we’re invited to immerse ourselves not in Christianity but in Christian living.

Angie Allport, Deacon

Arno is very practical throughout this book. I have sensed the urgency to accelerate and deepen my understanding of what God is saying to us. It tells the lost story of the God who reaches out to be involved with us.

Peaceman Nyamande, Partner/Financial Planner & Consultant

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the 121 principles for life in Arno’s book. Each principle and reflection is related to a Bible verse. They challenge us to change personally and as a community if we want to see the Kingdom of God on earth.

The principles for life are relevant for today’s multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious world. This book is a must read.

Bijay Ghamal, Pastor

Kingdom living is the direction we, as Christians want to be orientating our life towards. In this book Arno takes us on an engaging, challenging and theological journey as we learn how to become more and more Christ like.

Jake Clifford, Head of Events

Dedication

I dedicate this book to all the discontented in the world. It is written for people who find it difficult to make sense of the teaching that they hear in the church or watch on television and who are confused about the lives they are living.

This book is for all the frustrated people who feel that believing in a loving God must make a difference in how we live and what we say. It is for all those who cannot cope with the kind of preaching, which is turning people away from church, because it is not showing the way towards a loving God. I am thinking of the kind of teaching that does not sound or feel like Jesus’s teaching, because the focus is on all the things that God is supposedly against. It is a message of judgement and condemnation based on a few debatable verses in the Bible. It fails to focus on the biggest theme of the Bible: the fight against all kinds of oppression, exploitation and poverty. Jesus is our liberator from sin and death, as well as from institutional violence.

This book is an attempt to show what a Jesus-centred theology might look like. It depicts a theology of inclusion; a theology of churches drawing communities together, not by merely tolerating people who are different to the majority, but by loving everybody and including everybody.

It is a book that sets out a passionate plea for a lifestyle that will bring people together, break down the walls that have been built between people groups, and give us a taste of the life we can expect in the Kingdom of God.

Before we start

I became a Christian when I was 17 years old. It was all new to me. I had no concept of Christian faith or Christian living. It was exciting and adventurous.

I was in my last year of Sixth Form in Denmark and I was going to make decisions about my future, but how do you make decisions as a Christian? I wondered if God had a special plan for my life and what I needed to do to ensure that I was faithful to God. I was full of questions and loved going to Bible study groups. I could not get enough. I tried to read the Bible, but I needed somebody to explain it all to me. I also needed to be able to ask a lot of questions and learn how the Bible related to my everyday life.

When I turned 18, I got a job in a bank. I went to my vicar as well as other Christians and asked them what it meant to be a Christian in the work place. Nobody could answer me. I did learn one thing though. They told me that I was now working for the devil, because I was working in the financial sector! It was not helpful advice for a new Christian who wanted to honour God and do His will.

I have wrestled with this same issue my whole Christian life. How do you live your faith both inside and outside of the church? How do I catch the Spirit of God for everyday decisions about how to prioritise my time, how to spend my money, etc.

Jesus and a Bible teacher were discussing how to sum up the Old Testament and agreed that we were to, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’, and to, Love your neighbour as yourself (Luke 10:27, NIV). When you ask Christians today, they might refer to what some called the Little Bible, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16, NIV).

In the following 13 chapters, I have tried to summarise the Bible by looking at a number of different passages that I believe might help us to catch the Spirit of God. Of course every chapter in the Bible is significant, but I have tried to pick out a number of texts that help us to understand our role in the world, as well as the place of the church.

I hope each chapter will lead to a lot of thought provoking discussions, but also that you will find some of the life applications helpful for your situation.

Blessings

Arno

1 - Something to live for – something to die for

Scripture reading: Luke 4:14-30

Try to imagine being invited to give the keynote speech at a school reunion. What would you like to say to your old friends? Would you encourage them or would you use the opportunity to get some old pain off your chest?

Jesus was asked to reflect on a reading from Isaiah when He visited the synagogue in His home town. He grew up in this community and had been part of this religious assembly since childhood. Here He was known as the son of Joseph, the tradesman’s son. He knew what to say to live up to their expectations, but things had changed in His life. Just like us, He had to make a decision about whether He was going to conform to who He was supposed to be or embrace His true identity.

Jesus was aware of His relationship with God. When He was twelve years old, He knew that He belonged to God and that He had a great wish to be in His Father’s house to discuss theology with the learned. Later, He was baptised and God broke the silence, and shouted from the heavens that Jesus was His beloved Son. This revelation changed everything for Jesus. He relocated from his family home in Nazareth to Capernaum in the north. He started His ministry as a travelling rabbi around the age of 30 and it was going well.

As a result, rumours preceded His trip to Nazareth. What could people expect of their local boy?

The passage in Luke 4 has been called the Jesus Manifesto as Jesus spelled out His purpose in life. This raised some eyebrows as well as people’s voices and fists.

Be empowered for life (Luke 4:14)

Jesus not only depended on His ability to learn the Scriptures or on His preaching skills. He ministered in the power of the Holy Spirit. He was conceived by the Spirit, He, returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee (Luke 4:14, ESV) and He was going to transform lives as, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me (Luke 4:18, ESV).

We see that God’s Son had to depend on the Spirit of God to be truly effective in life and to be able to live out His purpose. Life was no easier for Jesus than it is for us. That is why He can truly be our role model.

Some people believe that Jesus could not have sinned when tempted during His desert period and that He could heal and deliver people because He was God’s Son. If so, then how can we ever attempt to become more like Jesus?

Paul makes it clear that Jesus presented Himself on earth as a human being even though He was also fully God, Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion (Philippians 2:5-8, MSG)

Just like Jesus, we need the Holy Spirit to make a lasting difference in our lives. It is the Spirit that helps us to be loving, kind, patient, etc., just like it is the Spirit that enables us to cope when persecuted or empowers us to heal people who are unwell. The foundation for a Christian life is spiritual empowerment.

Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and we are knitted together by God in our mothers’ wombs (Psalm 139:13). We are wonderfully put together by God, embedded with unique gifts and talents, but we still need the Holy Spirit to guide us and empower us. Jesus prayed at His baptism and the Holy Spirit came upon Him (Luke 3:21-22).

After some time, we may start to rely on our education, experience and track record instead of trusting in the leading of the Spirit. We may even believe that God is lucky to have us helping Him with His business of running the world.

What we do know is that we need to learn to do things God’s way as our culture will pull us in other directions. It is good to have some level of self-efficacy where we trust that we are able to make a difference in certain areas, but we will fail if we become too self-assured. Jesus needed the Spirit to go through life and what a difference He made in three/four short years. His life had impact because of the action of the Spirit upon His life.

Get involved (Luke 4:15)

Have you ever watched a game show on television where people froze under the pressure while you could easily come up with the answer? Or, have you watched a sports match and found yourself shouting at the television screen telling the people what to do? It is easy to be a bystander or a backseat driver, but they do not change the world. It is engaged people who change the status quo.

In the Kingdom of God, we do not divide people into performers and spectators. We are all called to make ourselves useful. We were given a job description all the way back to Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28).

Jesus, taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him (Luke 4:15, ESV). We see how Jesus is not just delegating everything to His team. He goes ahead of the team to show them what to do and how to do it. Leaders cannot take a back seat and enjoy their position. Leaders, like anybody else, get involved in making a difference.

We see that Jesus taught in different synagogues together with His disciples. He showed them what to do, so they could learn from Him. They saw Him in action and it did not always look pretty. This was not an exam where He would be graded for His performance. This was real life and sometimes real life works and at other times it goes really wrong. We can only learn how to tackle difficult situations by being involved and seeing what other people do. Jesus did not come to impress people, but to transform lives. We are called to become pilots who navigate through the turbulence of life. Our co-pilots learn from our behaviours and attitudes and it equips them to do better.

Challenge your Bible study groups to step out of their comfort zones. Go with them. Show them how you would do it and let them also see the situations where you feel insecure or where people do not respond as you had expected. It will allow them to try new things, to explore and sometimes to fail.

When we try to be perfect in the eyes of others, we become what Jesus called hypocrites. People cannot really learn from us if we put on a show instead of living authentically with real faith and fears. We know that we are in a spiritual battle, so there will be battles we win and battles we lose. By getting involved the Jesus way, we allow others to see both our victories and our failures and to learn from us as we experience them.

Be committed to your people (Luke 4:16)

Emails, Facebook, mobiles and other social media have helped us to connect with people far away, but they may also have taken us away from true engagement with the people close by. It is easier to send a text than it is to go and visit a friend in the area.

Christian life is for living and we only truly live when we engage with a community of people. That is one of the reasons why we gather in our churches for worship as well as all the other activities throughout the week. We gain self-understanding through our relationship with others and God. It is not enough to have a great relationship with God, we also need the right people around us. We see that clearly when we read about Adam. Adam had a great time with God, but it was not enough (Genesis 2:18-22).