David Yarbrough
Acts 14:22 (CSB)
strengthening the disciples by encouraging them to continue in the faith and by telling them, “It is necessary to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”
Kingdom living can be a life filled with ups and downs, highs and lows. In following Jesus, it is inevitable that we will run into obstacles. There are everyday hurdles that all of us run into, like disappointment, fear, and self-doubt, and left unchecked, they all have the potential to hinder our joy and drain our faith. The world, the flesh, and the devil are always at work, putting up roadblocks and obstacles to try to keep us from living our Kingdom purpose. We need to be able to see the warning signs before these obstacles ever trip us up or shut us down.
Obstacle one: Inflated self-love
This is one of the top tools the devil has in his collection to get us disoriented in the Kingdom of God. Inflated self-love can be a strong undercurrent that has the ability to pull a believer away from their firm footing in the Kingdom of God and cause them to trip up into sin. As the end times draw to a close, this phrase will come to define the era: “For people will be lovers of self.” (2 Tim. 3:1–2)
The enemy is very deceptive in how he uses fear and insecurity, intertwined with a little success and material goods, to manipulate us into focusing on ourselves too much. When this happens, we begin to believe the lie that our value and self-worth are all wrapped up in our success, our stuff, and what other people think about us. This puffs up our pride, which is at the root of all other sins, and will cause us to promote self-centered agendas all focused on self promotion and self profit.
We must make it our goal to pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal any inflated self love that is swirling around in our hearts. Anytime we have inflated self love flowing through our hearts, we cannot be spiritually healthy. A strategy we can use is to pray for the Holy Spirit to make us highly aware and sensitive in this particular area. We must be suspicious of anything that might distract or divert our love from God.
Obstacle Two: Love of the World
James 4:4 (CSB)
You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.
James uses strong language here, referring to those who love the world as adulterous and hostile to God. It should deeply concern us when James says, "Whoever is a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." Whenever we set this within the parameters of Kingdom living, it reinforces the truth that the kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of God are in direct opposition to one another. And we cannot be loyal to both at the same time.
As Kingdom citizens, we live in the world, but we are not of the world. We are ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor. 5:20), which means our embassy here in this world is the Kingdom of God. An embassy is a sovereign territory that follows the rules of its home country. As ambassadors of the Kingdom we are taking the Kingdom message of the gospel from the embassy into the world. We can love the people in the world without loving the world. The world system around us is under the domain of the devil and is filled with darkness and deception (2 Cor. 4:4). We, as ambassadors for Christ, are shining the light of the Kingdom of God into the dark world around us.
We must be careful and guard our hearts against the world system that is constantly hurling at us fears and anxieties about worldly matters that we have no control over. The deception is that the temporary things of this world will satisfy us, that they will bring us happiness, but in the end, all they do is bring pain, suffering, and disappointment. Be mindful that anytime you step outside the perimeters of Kingdom living, even though it may look beautiful and full of light, it is a false light, and you're actually stepping into darkness and deception.
2 Corinthians 11:14
And no wonder! For Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.