A Quote by Nikolai Berdyaev
The Church is simply the path of history, and not the actual kingdom of God.
Related Quotes
Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply can't be the church.
The history of the Church is the rise and progress of the kingdom of heaven upon earth, for the glory of God and the salvation of the world.
Jesus' kingdom was not like the popular expectation. He used the phrase 'kingdom of God' with a different meaning. His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). It was not like the kingdoms of this world. It was the kingdom of God, a supernatural kingdom. It was invisible to most people (John 3:3)-it could not be understood or experienced without the Holy Spirit (v. 6). God is Spirit, and the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom.
Nothing in the church makes people in the church more angry than grace. It's ironic: we stumble into a party we weren't invited to and find the uninvited standing at the door making sure no other uninviteds get in. Then a strange phenomenon occurs: as soon as we are included in the party because of Jesus' irresponsible love, we decide to make grace "more responsible" by becoming self-appointed Kingdom Monitors, guarding the kingdom of God, keeping the riffraff out (which, as I understand it, are who the kingdom of God is supposed to include).
If the kingdom of God is within us and that is a kingdom of justice, of peace, and of joy then whoever remains with these virtues is certainly in the kingdom of God. By contrast, all who deal in unrighteousness, in discord, and in death-bearing gloom have taken their stand in the kingdom of the devil, in hell and in lifelessness. It is by these tokens that the kingdom of God or of the devil is recognized.
I do believe that the Church is God's primary instrument for ushering in the Kingdom (God's dream) on earth as it is in heaven, but God is not limited to use only the Church, or only Christians for that matter.
It has been said by church historians that in those periods of Christian history where renewal, revival, and awakening took place and the church was at its strongest, that coincidental with those periods in church history, there was a strong focus on the psalms in the life of God's people-particularly in the worship of God's people.
The work of the Spirit is the bringing to be of the vision of God....the capacitating of persons to 'see visions' and 'dream dreams'. .... The birth of the Church is the beginning of the End. ..... The Kingdom of God as the miracle of ocular newness when 'the blind see' makes its impact on history in the creation of a visionary community . [[The tongues were]] the language of the world to come... Therefore in this birth of the Church, the risen and ascended Lord takes to himself a Body on earth with eyes opened by the Spirit to see the future.
The Church and only the Church has been given the keys to the kingdom, so we have unique access to God that nobody else has.
Each of us has to face the matter — either the Church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground. It is the Church and kingdom of God, or it is nothing.
The actual point in question, throughout the centuries of Christian persecution, has never been faith in God, but faith in the Bible as the word of God, and in the Church (this Church or that) as the interpreter of that word.
It should be recognized that this Church is not a social club. This is the kingdom of God on the earth. It is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Its purpose is to bring salvation and exaltation to both the living and the dead.
Over the years, I have studied church history as well as the contemporary church, and I noticed how rare it is for a God-glorifying transition of leadership to take place in a local church.
The inflections of community are important because they get at the very meanings of marriage. Marriage is a gift God gives the church. He does not simply give it to the married people of the church, but to the whole church, just as marriage is designed not only for the benefit of the married couple. It is designed to tell a story to the entire church, a story about God’s own love and fidelity to us
If we spend our days trying to avoid the landmines of stepping out of God's will, then will be afraid to take any risks for his kingdom. But when you know there is a net of grace, when you know that God will catch you and set you back on his path when you fall, then you'll feel the freedom to pursue the adventure that kingdom living is all about.
God's dream still remains unfulfilled. It was not fulfilled 2,000 years ago, or in the home of any religious leader or any American home, and today the Unification Church is here to pledge to fulfill that dream. We don't want to confine that fulfillment to our Church, but to expand it all over the world. Wouldn't that be the Kingdom of God on earth?
Related Authors
Alan Watts Quotes
English
Philosopher
Albert Camus Quotes
French
Philosopher
Aristotle Quotes
Greek
Philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer Quotes
German
Philosopher
Blaise Pascal Quotes
French
Philosopher
Confucius Quotes
Chinese
Philosopher
Francis Bacon Quotes
English
Philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes
German
Philosopher
Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes
Indian
Philosopher
Laozi Quotes
Chinese
Philosopher
Michel de Montaigne Quotes
French
Philosopher
Plato Quotes
Greek
Philosopher
Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
American
Philosopher
Seneca the Younger Quotes
Roman
Philosopher
Thomas Carlyle Quotes
Scottish
Philosopher
William James Quotes
American
Philosopher