Flipped - Life In The Upside Down Kingdom 

My family and I have just returned from Spring Harvest, a Christian conference/festival. It was a time to be with other Christians from every denomination to hear God's Word and to worship Him. For five days, everyone we came into contact with was a follower of Christ and best of all, no camping was involved!

This year's theme was "Flipped - Life In The Upside Down Kingdom". We looked at Jesus, His kingdom and what it involves. The kingdom is not revealed in the powerful and influential, but in the outcasts, the humble and the forgotten. It is those that have been excluded and are broken that are most welcome. Jesus tells his disciples "the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” And he added, “God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.” (Matthew 11:5-6). It is a flipped, upside down kingdom. It is not the type of kingdom expected by the Jewish people. They expected the Messiah to come from a powerful and influential part of society. Instead, we find the Son of God born in a manger, who spends his time with the outcasts of society. We see Jesus heal the leper, drive out demons, welcome the woman who bleeds and sits with a tax collector, to name but a few. He invites those on the fringes of society into his kingdom. Those that are often overlooked and ignored, those that have been told they are not faithful or good enough. Jesus welcomes and invites those most excluded from society.

We were shown a video of a lady who suffered dementia. She kept repeating the word "God" over and over again. It was not until a nurse asked her if she was worried she would forget God that she responded "yes", the best way she could. The nurse told her that although she may well forget God, He would not forget her. At this, the woman calmed down and relaxed. She had known God all her life and her main fear was that her condition would cause her to forget Him. He never forgets! He is for everyone, but particularly those who feel on the outside. We all want to be seen and heard. God sees us and does not overlook us, and we all need to act like kingdom people and see and hear others too.

The Sermon on the Mount tells us who, and how we should behave. There are eight blessings in these Beatitudes, for the poor, those who mourn, for the peacemakers, the pure in heart and others – read them in Matthew 5: 5-12. After this, Jesus tells us to ‘Rejoice and be glad’. This can seem a strange thing for Him to have said. After all, should you be glad if you're poor? Yet when we read and hear these words, we understand that  yes, we are blessed for God’s kingdom is for everybody. Not only are we welcome, but we're known and not overlooked. We are all welcome in God's kingdom and as the realisation of this becomes apparent, we should change our lives to reflect the mercy and goodness of God. Our motives and how we live our lives should be brought into alliance with God’s plan for us and His kingdom. Jesus says in Matthew, ‘Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on rock’ (Matthew 7:24). Jesus not only welcomes us into his kingdom, but shows us how to live like kingdom people – to love one another, to see one another and ‘so in everything do to others what you would have them do to you’ (Matthew 7:15). Let us all try to act like Beatitude people, for we are all blessed to be in the Kingdom of God, where the last are first and the first are last!