No big revelation there, right?  Most people of faith have no difficulty believing this.  In the next life, we think, there will be no sickness, no financial struggles, no relationship problems, and no personal insecurities. We will be whole, complete, and have everything we need.  Sure. That’s in the next world. 

In this world, we know from the Gospels that Jesus performed all kinds of miracles: he brought the power of God out of the unreachable world of heaven into our earthly existence.  He healed people who were sick. He raised the dead. He experienced God’s presence in a physical, tangible way.  Angels appeared to him, voices from Heaven spoke.  He saw visions, he could read people’s hearts and thoughts, he saw the future and the past.  He spoke with the authority of God.  He met financial need miraculously (remember that coin Peter found in the fish’s mouth, or the huge catches of fish Jesus led his disciples to?). He reconciled squabbling friends. And he spoke encouragement into people’s lives, telling them what they could be, who they are in God’s sight, and the mighty things they could accomplish.  He was the walking embodiment of the Kingdom of God.

That was then, that was him.  But what about here and now, what about us?

When Jesus first began his public ministry, he began with the message of calling people back to God and telling them that the great era of unleashing God’s presence and power into this world had commenced.  “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”  It has arrived, and we are to change our thinking and our actions to adjust to this new reality.  And he informed everyone that the Kingdom of God was in their very midst, it was in them and among them at that moment.  And they could be participants in it. Later when he sent out his disciples, he gave them that exact same message to declare.

This is the crucial point, the very foundation of Jesus’ message: the Kingdom of God is here and now.

Our mistake too often is in thinking that the Kingdom is some future time or some other heavenly place. It is not a place, it is not a time.  It is a state of existence.  The Kingdom is where the rule of God exists: “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”  Wherever God’s will is done, wherever his power is active, THAT is the Kingdom of God.  And by submitting yourself to God, by joining his family and declaring your allegiance to Jesus, you are actually turning your life into sovereign territory. You become an agent and ambassador of God’s Kingdom, a plenipotentiary. Your home, your work place, becomes an embassy.  His laws apply. And everything you touch — and everything that touches you — becomes subject to that law.

Those credit card bills you have: subject to God’s sovereign rule.  Because they contractually bound themselves to you, they now fall under Kingdom jurisdiction.  Diabetes? Blood pressure? Cancer? HIV/AIDS? Situations at work?  Obnoxious people?  Strained family relationships?  Friendships?  Guess what?  If they touch you, they automatically become subject to God’s will, God’s rule, and God’s power. 

YOU are the Kingdom — if you are a child of God, and if you have declared Jesus your Lord.

Wrap your mind around this fact. Change your thinking. Change your behavior and your actions to fall in line with this truth.  Inside this Kingdom, in this jurisdiction, all things are possible because all things are possible to God.  Hold your credit card bills in hand, and pronounce Kingdom rule over them. They just got “nationalized”.  Touch your frail body, and declare it subject to God’s jurisdiction, subject to his power and his supernatural laws of life.  Walk into your office, stand in your doorway, and announce that the Ambassador has arrived and he carries the full weight of God’s authority.  When toxic people enter your space and start spewing poisonous gossip, smile, and reclaim the air around you for the Kingdom.  Assert its domain. (And don’t compromise that eminent domain by participating in things illegal under Kingdom rule.)  Stop seeing all these difficult situations and stressors in your life as unbearable burdens, or hopeless situations.  Nothing is out of the realm of possibility to you now.

You are a Royal Ambassador.  You carry clout and awesome authority. You embody the Kingdom of God. Everything is possible. So act like it.

Jesus apparently had that same problem sometimes. The same man who caused a fig tree to wither just by speaking to it also could only perform a few minor healings in a certain town because no one had faith and the power just wasn’t flowing. And that stymied him. Faith, real faith that unleashes miraculous power, is a rare commodity.

Faith is also selective. And I think this is where most of us miss it. We tend to take the shotgun approach: aiming at whatever target is in front of us at the moment and yanking away recklessly at the trigger. But faith is really a sniper’s rifle, a bolt-action, single shot weapon. When Jesus was walking along one day in the suburbs of Jerusalem, he runs across the pool of Bethesda where sick people would wait for the water to stir, then try to crawl into it to be healed. Like a modern-day evangelistic healing crusade, this place was packed. “Here a great multitude would lay, waiting …” (John 5:3). But Jesus picks out a single man. “Do you want to get well? … Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” What about all the others? This guy had been there a long time, to be sure. 38 years. But there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special about this guy. In fact, the quality of his faith isn’t even mentioned.

When the religious leaders of the day challenge Jesus (because it happened to be the Sabbath, and miracles make religious people nervous), Jesus points out a few things. “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working. … I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing” (John 5:17-19).

A long time ago I was in a small group conversation with a pastor in Argentina. At the time, he was well known for his massive crusades where healings regularly took place, so naturally, they were always packed. He commented that it seemed like God tended to focus on one type of healing at a time in his meetings. One night, blind people would be healed. On another night, it would be the deaf or lame. This apparently bothered him, so he asked God about it one day in prayer. “Lord, why do you do it that way, and why are some types of people healed and others not?” God’s answer, he told us, put him in his place and at the same time, set him free from worrying about such things. “None of your business.”

This pastor, like Jesus, just did what he was told. He only cooperated with what God was already doing. And if God chose to heal only people with eye troubles that night, then that’s what he’d go along with.

Our faith needs to be targeted the same way. We need to stop trying to command that mountain unless we see God already moving it and he specifically instructs us to speak the words. And it’s not like we’ll be sitting around for long periods of time with nothing to do. “My Father is always working — even to this day.” We just need to remember that when we try to assert divine authority “in Jesus’ name”, then Jesus needs to be the one actually giving the direction.

I believe in miracles. I believe in divine healing, in supernatural provision and blessing. But faith is the powder inside the sniper round. And I shouldn’t try to pull the trigger until given the order to fire.