If Christ were Lord over the world...

How do you create a community that shows what life would be like if Christ was Lord over the world?

The gospel's give us a picture of what life would be like if Christ was Lord over the world, as death is conquered, sickness is healed, demons are banished, sin is defeated and perfect obedience is lived out. It is this glimpse that we see fleshed out in Revelation 21 and 22 and the descriptions of the new heaven and new earth where Christ is Lord and God is on his throne and all barriers to that are removed, including our sinfulness.

The Church is to be the community that enables the world to glimpse what such a reality looks like now, just as Israel was to be for the people around it in its day. So what marks such a community?

Acts 2 shows us some of the marks of just such a community and the word that stands out is devotion. But it is only as the gospel is proclaimed (apostolic teaching), Christ is remembered (breaking of bread) and God is relied upon (prayer) that such a community (fellowship) is formed.

How do you create a community that shows what life would be like if Christ was Lord over the world? You don't, you pray that God would do so as you devote yourselves to God's word and remember together what Christ has done for us on the cross; taking the punishment for our rebellion on himself and crediting us with his right standing before God. You then look to devote yourself to those thinsg with thsoe around you. Wouldn't such a community turn the world upside down now just as it did in the first century?