Kingdom Mechanics – Gregory Scott Blog

On Feeling God’s Pleasure

Eric Liddell – 1924 Olympics Gold Medalist

This year is the 100th anniversary of Eric Liddell’s 1924 gold medal performance in the Paris Olympics, later memorialized in the 1981 Academy Award winning movie, Chariots of Fire.

There are a number of memorable lines in the movie but none better than when Liddell is explaining to his sister why he must temporarily put off the mission field to participate in the olympics:

God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.
Chariots of Fire (1981)

The thing is, apparently Eric Liddell never said this. These are the words of screenwriter Colin Welland. There’s not much about Welland’s religious beliefs on the internet. He was married though for 53 years before his death from Alzheimers, which is a good indication of something more at his core than secular humanism.

Still, I believe the line above was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit. It captures better than just about any single statement I have heard two components of God-inspired work.

The first is the teleological component: “God made me fast.” It’s unstated implication is inescapable: “Therefore He made me to run.” It was the implicit argument in what Liddell (fictionally) says to his sister in Chariots of Fire to explain why he should run, and it is a sound one.

Irish-Scotch Travel Journal Day – 3

Culloden Estate and Spa, Holywood, Northern Ireland

It’s easy to speculate about why the Lord in His sovereignty allows certain things to happen the way they do. Day 1 of this journey was without a doubt the worst travel day any of us have ever had in terms of the sheer quantity of things that went wrong.

And here’s the thing: before we rerouted from Newark to Philadelphia, we all prayed and agreed it seemed the thing to do. Yet, when it was all said and done, we found ourselves stuck in Philadelphia and at the end of Day 2 in Toronto, neither of which seemed to have anything to do with our mission.

What is undeniably true is the Lord must sometimes allow such things to happen to position us for purposes we may not fully understand in the moment. This positioning is necessary because as humans we exist in space and time and, therefore, in one place at a time. We can’t be in Philadelphia and Dublin at the same time, and there may be reasons the Lord wants us in Philadelphia or not in Dublin at that time.

The Apostle Paul ending up on the ship that wrecked and dumped him and the crew on the shore of Malta is an example. See Acts 27-28. As he was in the midst of it, Paul might have asked the Lord why he ended up on a ship that wrecked, but I’m convinced the Lord was positioning him.

I believe Paul ended up on Malta when the father of the “chief official” of the island was sick so Paul could heal him and lead him to the Lord. As a result, tradition indicates, the chief official became a Christian, as did many on Malta. Paul had to be in a ship wreck to be in a position to share the gospel so Malta could be converted to Christianity.

If Christians Did These 4 Things They Would Rule the World

If you haven’t picked up on it from this blog yet, I have an optimistic view of the future because I am a Kingdom man. I believe Isaiah when he said the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, and that the people will stream to the mountain of God. See Isaiah 2:2, 11:9.

I believe Daniel when he said the kingdom of God will crush and put an end to all these other kingdoms but that the kingdom of God will endure forever. Daniel 2:44.

I believe Jesus when He said the kingdom of God will leaven the entire world and become like a tree so that the even non-Christians will seek to nest under the shade of its branches. Matthew 13:31-33.

I read with interest the efforts to theologify (I made that word up) these beliefs into a system of strategies and tactics whether it be Christian Reconstruction, the Seven Mountain Mandate, or any of the efforts to express the idea that the world should run best when it is run by those who are obedient to King Jesus.

But while tactics and strategies are important, they are really useless if the people who are given the responsibility of carrying them out have not been trained to do the fundamentals first. Christians don’t need to understand the Seven Mountains or Christian Reconstruction to advance the kingdom of God.

If Christians only consistently did the following four things they would see the greatest advance of the kingdom of God since the first century:

3 Reasons Christians Don’t Live in Victory over Sin

I’ve always had a high view of the power of the Holy Spirit to enable Christians to live in victory over sin. There is plenty of scripture to demonstrate that those who have been born again and filled with the Holy Spirit have the power to resist sin.

The Apostle Paul said that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead resides in Christians. So, why would I think that Spirit could raise Jesus from the dead but not be powerful enough to enable me to resist sin? Or, why would I think the power of the fall of man was more powerful than the resurrection of Jesus?

That born again, Spirit-filled Christians have the power to live in victory over sin, frankly, should be fundamental and axiomatic. The more interesting question is, “If Christians have the power to live in victory over sin, why don’t they?” I think there are three primary reasons:

Why Being Available Trumps Being Prepared in the Kingdom of God

I’m a preparer. No, actually, I’m an over-preparer.

I’ve been that way for most of my life, but because I’m hard wired as a hard worker, I’ve been able accomodate my need to prepare.

As I’ve gotten older though, I’ve realized that when it comes to the things of the kingdom of God, there is something more important than being prepared, and that is being available.

By being available I mean being willing in the moment with no advanced warning to share the gospel, help, minster, or pray for someone. I rarely tell someone anymore, “Let me think about it and get back to you” because (1) I am far too busy and know I’m likely to forget; and (2) such help is best received by the individual when they make their need known to me. The best time to provide help is usually at the point someone is willing to ask for it.

Being available is more important than being prepared because we exist in a reality cabined by time. While God can and certainly has tampered with time in the past (e.g. Joshua 10:12-14), it certainly appears that His default is to work within the confines of time.

This means it is unlikely another person will present their need to you at a time most convenient for you. It is more likely that the moment when someone needs you to respond to the prompting of the Holy Spirit is a time when you are engaged in something else.