I recently finished a personal Bible study on the Kingdom
of God. The Lord encouraged me with these
thoughts:
The Kingdom of God is a power already released in the
world. Its beginnings are tiny – but
once it has been begun, nothing can stop it.
Not even the “gates” or powers of hell can prevent the Kingdom of God
from coming to completion.
Three word pictures of the Kingdom of God are given in the
gospels:
- The
lump of yeast is small, but when added to flour it will leaven into a very
large quantity of dough (Matthew 13:33).
- The
mustard seed is tiny, but if you
plant it, it will grow to become one of the largest of trees (Matthew
13:31-32).
- If you sow
a field with seed, you will have
set in motion forces which one day will produce the harvest (Mark
4:26-29).
This is what the Kingdom of God is like – it starts
small, but with time it will grow to something overwhelmingly large!
If you are praying for and trusting God to start a
movement to bring the Kingdom of God to the lost on your campus, you are
partnering with Him to set into motion the forces which will produce a
harvest for God!
Many of you are in the beginning stages of starting to
build God’s Kingdom at your school.
Remember that although the results you may be seeing today seem small, maybe
even invisible, they will eventually result in a large harvest! Look at this amazing story of how God used
“small beginnings” in prayer to build a fruitful movement in Irkutsk:
How one person accomplished
much through prayer: [Irkutsk, Russia - 2005]: there is a dormitory
in Irkutsk which is now considered “the Christian Dorm”. Most of the students involved in the local
ministry live in this dorm as do most of those who place their trust in Christ
as Savior each year. At that time, in fact, 4 of the Russian New Life
staff serving in Irkutsk lived in this dorm as students.
Why is all this happening in
this one particular dormitory? This dorm has a history. A
Christian student lived in that dorm in 1995 and during his first year at
the university he and a small group of students from his church decided to
start a prayer time for the dorm. They faithfully prayed for the dorm
and for the university. It wasn’t long after they began to pray
regularly that the university administration found out about these “strange
meetings” and forbid them to continue. But this didn’t stop the students
from praying, instead they began to meet more frequently and the size of the
prayer group grew. And in 2005 we were still seeing answers to their prayers
begun in 1995.
It turns out that the “history
of prayer” for this dorm began even earlier than 1995! Not long ago one
of our New Life staff met a pastor who said that he also lived in that very
same dorm when he was a student there in 1991. He was the only
believer in this dorm at the time and he began praying continually for the
dorm, for the students who lived there and for his university from his freshman
year until he graduated.
Perhaps this pastor really
wasn’t the first to begin praying for this dorm…we don’t know when the
“history of prayer” for this dorm began, but we do know that it is
continuing. The former student/now pastor noted, “with prayer it all
begins and with prayer it continues”. And the students in that dorm
are continuing to pray today that God will use them to gather a future harvest.
As you step out in faith and ask God to use you in bring
His Kingdom to the lost at your school, remember that the forces of God have
been set into motion, which will inevitably build His Kingdom! Once started, even though it may be a small
beginning, God’s Kingdom cannot be stopped! Stay on the course He has set before you,
don’t stop believing that He will do it, walk by faith in His power, stay
faithful to the little things and the big things, don’t give up in despair and
doubt. God’s Kingdom will come to
you campus!
