Acts 1:6 - Have You Got The Big Picture Yet?

Wednesday 3/14/12 – Have You Got The Big Picture Yet?

Acts 1:6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Interpretation:

     Like the majority of Jesus’ followers and the rest of the Jewish community, Jesus’ apostles had a narrow scope of what His plans were having not understood the concept of a spiritual kingdom. They originally thought that the Messiah’s kingdom was of this world and that He would set it up right away. When Jesus died, His followers had to reconsider their original concept of the kingdom and even thought that everything was over. But now that the apostles saw that Jesus was back from the dead, they went back to their original idea of Jesus having an earthly kingdom in Israel now that they could see how it would make sense again. However, for those of us who have the advantage of looking about two thousand years down the road, we know that the apostles’ assumptions about Jesus’ kingdom were a little off. They were concerned about an earthly kingdom just in Israel, but Jesus had the bigger picture in mind.

     Like the apostles, we can have presuppositions about Jesus and what He wants to accomplish. We can repeatedly try to understand God with our limited knowledge and assume our understanding of His kingdom and desires are completely accurate. Sometimes, we try to figure out God and put Him in a box. However, according to Isaiah, God says that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways aren’t our ways. So it might be kind of disappointing, but He’s not going to fit into our boxes. Imagine if He did. Imagine if Jesus’ plans for His kingdom went only as far as an earthly kingdom like the apostles thought. Then what hope would we have for eternity? If Jesus just came to set up an earthly kingdom in Israel, what hope would the Gentiles have? Praise God that His ways are so much higher than ours!

     That’s why in Matthew 6:10 when Jesus is teaching His disciples to pray, He says “…[Our Father,] Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.” This is how Jesus wants us to pray – that His omniscient heavenly will would be done on earth instead of our earthly will being done in heaven. Sometimes we just need to give up thinking that we know what’s the best thing to be done in our lives and in the world, and instead, simply pray that He starts putting His will and desires on our hearts, whatever they may be. We need to realize that God’s kingdom isn’t always concerned about the priorities and things that we think He should be concerned about. There are many examples of this in the Bible including Paul wanting to go to Asia but going to Macedonia instead, God giving Gideon victory through a small army instead of a large one, God letting Joseph be sold into slavery, and the list goes on. Really it does – there’s Jonah, Joshua and Jericho, Moses killing the Egyptian. Pick pretty much any character in the Bible – but really, I don’t have enough space to write all the examples. So I’ll close with this: In light of all that was said, instead of trying to get God’s will to conform to ours, we need our hearts’ desires and prayers conformed to His. Then, and only then, will we be able to see a little bit more of His big picture as He starts to give us His heart’s vision for our lives and the rest of the world around us.

Application:

     I will take time in prayer to ask God to show me what His desires are for my life and others so that I might learn what He wants me to be praying for. Already, I believe He has been calling me to pray for a burden for the people of El Salvador and for an even greater burden to be content with Him and Him alone in my life. So I’ll also pray for those two things.