Tag: kingdom of God

Benediction: Go in Awe

Camaron G. W. SmithLeave a comment

Go in awe

Not awe at a distance, or awe in that of a spectacle, but real awe that comes
when the everlasting God draws near to share our dustiness.

Go in awe

of the real Jesus Christ
not an idea to be managed
or a symbol to be admired,
but God in flesh,
breathing our air,
walking our ground,
carrying our humanity.

The God through whom all things were made
did not stand outside the world and call it back.
He stepped into it.
Into time.
Into history.
Into skin and bone, hunger and rest.

This is how God chose to love.
Not from above,
but from within.

God did not heal humanity
by replacing it.
He healed it
by joining Himself to it.
By binding divine life
to human life so closely
that nothing human is left untouched,
and nothing broken is left outside His care.

Go in awe

remembering
that the first word of this good news
was spoken in the dark,
to the watchful and the waiting.
Glory opened the night
not in halls of power
but in open fields.
Peace was announced
not as control,
but as presence.

This is the peace that mends what power cannot.
The peace that gathers what has been scattered.
The peace that restores the world
by healing it from the inside.

In Jesus,
God has said yes
to the earth,
yes to flesh,
yes to humanity,
and yes to the long work
of making all things new.

Nothing is abandoned.
No place is empty of God.
No human life exists
outside the reach of His nearness.

Go in awe


as people shaped by this good news.
Let it steady your fear,
soften your judgement,
and widen your mercy.

Go bearing witness
not by force,
but by faithfulness.
Not by escape,
but by presence.
Not by standing above the world,
but by standing within it.

And may the God
who came to be with us
remain with you,
among you, in you
and ahead of you,
until heaven and earth are gathered as one,
and all things are restored
in Him.

Amen.

Charlie Kirk Wasn’t a Christian Martyr

Camaron G. W. SmithLeave a comment

Probably a political one…

When news spread that Charlie Kirk had died, the internet lit up. Some people grieved, others rejoiced, and many quickly called him a martyr for the faith. Within hours his name was being spoken with reverence, as though he had fallen in defence of Christianity itself.

But as I watched the commentaries roll across my feed, something in me felt unsettled. It was not about politics or even about Charlie Kirk as a person. It was about the word people kept using. Martyr.

That word means something sacred. And when it is used to crown someone who lived and died for political ideals, something in the heart of our faith begins to thin out.

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What a Christian Martyr Really Is

In the earliest days of the Church, a martyr, from the Greek word martys, was not someone who died for an idea. A martyr was a witness. Someone who refused to stop proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord, even when it cost them their life.

Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned to death because he would not renounce the gospel. His last words were not words of rage. They were words of forgiveness. “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

The early Christians understood that martyrdom was not about defending a system or a worldview. It was about bearing witness to a love that even death could not silence.

Tertullian once wrote, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” He did not mean that violence or victory would build the kingdom. He meant that forgiveness and mercy would.

True martyrdom looks like Jesus. It is not about conquering. It is about giving. It is not about being right. It is about being faithful. When we call someone a Christian martyr, we are saying that their death revealed Christ’s love, that somehow in their dying, heaven’s light broke through the world’s darkness.

When Politics Demands What Religion Once Did

Modern politics is a jealous god. It borrows the language of faith such as devotion, sacrifice and loyalty, and twists them into tools for power.

And like all gods, it demands offerings. It demands martyrs.

When we drape the cross in the flag, we start to confuse the kingdom of God with the ambitions of nations. We start to name enemies where Christ has called us to name neighbours. We turn a symbol of love into a banner for war.

Charlie Kirk’s voice was bold. He stood for what he believed, and many saw that as courage. But faithfulness is not measured by volume or defiance. It is measured by love.

Jesus never told us to take up our rights and follow him. He said, “Take up your cross.”

The gospel does not spread through outrage or dominance. It moves quietly through mercy. The Church does not grow through victory. It grows through love that refuses to die.

A Political Martyr

If Charlie Kirk was a martyr, then he was a political one, a man who gave himself fully to a cause he believed in. There is something deeply human in that. We all long to stand for something bigger than ourselves.

But dying for a cause is not the same as dying for Christ.

To die for a cause is to defend an idea of what is good. To die for Christ is to surrender to the One who is good.

The difference might sound small, but it changes everything.

A political martyr dies fighting enemies. A Christian martyr dies loving them.

A political martyr defends power. A Christian martyr lays it down.

A political martyr hopes their death proves they were right. A Christian martyr hopes it proves that love is real.

When the language of politics takes over the Church, these differences fade. The gospel starts to sound like another campaign, another tribe trying to win. But the story of Jesus is not about winning. It is about dying and rising again. It is about the power of love that does not need to win to transform the world.

And that is what troubles me most. Not that Charlie Kirk died, but that so many Christians can no longer tell the difference between his death and Stephen’s.

The Hunger for Heroes

Maybe it is because we are desperate for heroes.

We scroll through chaos and want someone to believe in. Politicians turn into saviours. Preachers turn into politicians. And people crave clarity in a world that feels uncertain and divided.

It is easier to anoint a martyr for our side than to become a witness of Christ’s love.

But the call of Christ has never been about winning the culture war. It is about loving the world that crucifies us. It is about carrying the cross through the noise and trusting that resurrection still happens in small, hidden ways.

When we forget that, we turn the gospel into a slogan. We trade the mystery of grace for the certainty of outrage.

And maybe that is the deeper sorrow behind Charlie Kirk’s story. Not that one man lived or died in vain, but that so many have mistaken zeal for discipleship and anger for faithfulness.

A Better Witness

To say Charlie Kirk was not a Christian martyr is not to dishonour him. It is to remember what martyrdom truly means. It is to keep sacred what belongs to God and not give it to Caesar.

I grieve his death. I grieve the confusion that made it so easy to sanctify politics in the language of faith. I grieve that we have forgotten how to die without hating those who stand against us.

Perhaps his story can still lead us somewhere better, not toward more division but toward deeper reflection.

Because the world does not need more martyrs for movements. It needs witnesses to love.

It needs people who, when faced with darkness, choose forgiveness instead of fury. People who refuse to mistake power for holiness. People who, like the martyrs of old, live and die bearing the likeness of Christ.

The only martyrdom worth claiming is the one that looks like Jesus, the one that whispers mercy even as it bleeds.

If we can remember that, maybe we will stop crowning our politicians as saints and start learning again what holiness really looks like.

When Christians Misunderstand the Gospel: Why “God Reigns” Is More Radical Than We Think

Camaron G. W. SmithLeave a comment
A lone silhouetted figure runs along a distant mountain ridge beneath a vast twilight sky of deep blue and violet. Golden light breaks at the horizon, symbolising heaven and earth meeting in the reign of God. The atmosphere is quiet, cosmic, and filled with hope.

What if the greatest misunderstanding in modern Christianity is not about morality or politics but about the gospel itself? What if the good news we share is smaller than the one Jesus announced?

We often describe the gospel as a private story about forgiveness, heaven and personal salvation. Yet in Scripture the gospel is something far larger. It is the announcement that God reigns. It is not only about the state of our souls but about the state of the world. It is a claim about reality itself, a declaration that creation has a rightful King.

And that claim changes everything.

The Gospel as Royal Proclamation

In Hebrew, the word for good news is besorah, a royal announcement of victory (Isaiah 52). In Greek, it is euangelion, the public declaration that a king has triumphed (Mark 1).

Imagine an ancient city under siege. The people wait behind their walls, anxious for word from the battlefield. Then a runner appears on the hills, covered in dust, shouting between breaths, “Good news! Victory! The king has won!”

That was euangelion. It was not advice or philosophy but the kind of announcement that makes the world different because it is true.

When Isaiah writes, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’” (Isaiah 52:7), he is describing that runner. The heart of the gospel is that Yahweh has returned to rule His world.

Centuries later, Jesus begins His ministry with the same royal declaration: “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). He is not inventing a new religion but announcing that Israel’s long-awaited hope has arrived. God’s reign is breaking in.

The Kingdom Woven into Creation

The story of God’s Kingdom does not begin with Jesus. It begins in Genesis, where the rhythm of creation beats with divine rule (Genesis 1-2).

In the first three days, God shapes the realms of creation: light and darkness, sky and sea, land and vegetation. In the next three, He fills those realms with rulers: the sun and moon, the birds and fish, the animals and humanity.

The story is one of order and relationship. God reigns by creating and sharing. His rule is not control but care. Humanity, made in His image (Genesis 1:26-28), is invited to share that reign and to reflect His goodness, justice and creativity into the world.

To rule, in the biblical sense, is not to dominate. It is to cultivate. It is to join God in the work of making the world flourish.

The Kingdom of God is not a future dream. It is the structure of reality itself. Heaven and earth were made to live together (Genesis 2:15). Sin fractures that harmony, but the mission of God is to bring it back, to restore what was lost and heal what was broken.

Jesus: The King in Person

When Jesus announces the Kingdom, He is not speaking about a distant future or an inner feeling. He is proclaiming a change of reality. Where He walks, heaven and earth meet. The sick are healed, the outcasts restored, and the powers of darkness pushed back (Luke 4:18-9; Matthew 12:28).

At the cross, the world’s false rulers do their worst. Yet in that act of humiliation, the true King is enthroned (John 19:19). Through resurrection, His victory is declared not over Rome but over the powers that hold all creation captive: sin, death and decay (1 Corinthians 15:25-26).

Paul’s hymn in Colossians captures it perfectly:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. In Him all things hold together. Through Him God was pleased to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (Colossians 1:15-20).

This is not private spirituality. It is cosmic renewal. Christ holds the whole story together. In Him, the Creator’s original dream of heaven and earth united is set in motion again.

The People of the King

The early Christians understood this far better than we often do. They did not treat faith as an escape plan but as a new citizenship (Philippians 3:20). They believed that the Spirit who raised Jesus now lived within them, calling them to live as citizens of a new world (Romans 8:11).

Every act of love and hospitality, every work of justice or reconciliation, was an echo of the good news. It was a small proclamation that “our God reigns” (Isaiah 52:7).

The Kingdom is not confined to heaven or to church gatherings (though, as I argue elsewhere, the church should be a slice of the new creation). It is wherever the reign of Christ shapes hearts and habits, homes and communities (Matthew 5-7). It is wherever people reflect His character in the ordinary and the everyday.

N. T. Wright once said that the church does not bring the Kingdom by force; it embodies it by faithfulness. That is the invitation: to embody the reign of the King.

The Kingdom Completed: New Creation

The story of Scripture ends where it began, but expanded and fulfilled. A garden becomes a city. Heaven and earth are reunited.

John’s vision in Revelation captures it:

“I saw a new heaven and a new earth… and I heard a voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals’” (Revelation 21:1–3).

This is not an escape from the world, but rather its healing. The good news is not that we leave creation, but that God enters into it and restores it (Romans 8:19–21).

Every tear will be wiped away. Every injustice will be answered. The scars of the old world will become the beauty of the new (Revelation 21:4–5). The reign of God will fill everything.

Living Under His Reign

If the gospel is the announcement that God reigns, then discipleship is the art of living as if that reign were already true (Matthew 6:10). Repentance means realigning with reality, turning from our small empires to join the life of the King.

Faith is allegiance. It is trust that God’s rule is good and that life under His care is freedom, not bondage (John 8:36).

Every prayer, every meal, every act of mercy or courage is a way of saying again, “Your God reigns” (Isaiah 52:7).

The gospel is not good advice. It is good news.

And that news is this: heaven has begun to come down to earth. The reign of God is arriving quietly, patiently, beautifully, until all things are made new.