Get Your Pretense On!

Chapter 2: The Principle of Reversal and the Upside-Down Kingdom of God • 49

had issues with demonic oppression, and Peter was a betrayer. What of you and I: are we not the fickle and the forlorn?

What this small list representing the folk in Jesus’s storyline reveals is that the background, pedigree, or moral history of a person says nothing of what God almighty can do with someone, literally anyone he chooses to call, transform, and release to do his will. He is the God of the impossible and the implausible! We should be very careful before we begin to quote statistical data on the odds of people being different than they are. Actually, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born again, born of the Spirit and of God (John 3.3-6). Pretending that you are okay because you have not committed any egregious ( really bad ) sins doesn’t make you righteous. Nor does being willing to consign somebody to the “dark side” because of where they’ve been or what they’ve done in anti-kingdom and grace. God can do anything with anyone in any place to fulfill his kingdom will. He selects whom he will to accomplish what he wants–and nobody gets to veto his choice! Finally, what of unimaginable purposes ? The principle of reversal in the Lord’s Kingdom suggests that our God has chosen to operate on a plain and level different than the one on which the world operates. He has a penchant for broken things, for little ragged people, for causes against all odds, for impossible dreams. The good theology of the historically Black church put it this way: “God can make a way out of no way.” God’s thoughts and ways are not our thoughts and ways (Isa. 55.8-11), and he enjoys to select those on the bottom and to exalt them to the top. God has deliberately chosen the poor and the broken and the small to accomplish his kingdom purposes!