The early Believers certainly experienced changes to their thinking.  They were coming out of hundreds of years of the Law of Moses.  Their whole life experiences and religious teachings had to make some adjustments for Jesus.  The natural became the spiritual.  Jesus began to teach them parables.  The kingdom of God is like this, not as this, but like this.  A pearl that you find of great price and you are willing to give up everything else to obtain. Seed spread about in the Father’s field that produces in people thirty fold, sixty fold, or a hundred fold.   Jesus told the rich young ruler, sell everything you have, give to the poor, and follow me.

We have teachings in our churches today that need adjustment.  One of these teachings, I believe. is that we receive Christ and then we have no need of any other religious necessity in our lives.  To believe this, we would need to exclude much of the New Testament teachings.  For we are told in these scriptures that we are in a fight for our lives as believers. We have work to do.  Overcoming sin, submitting to God, changing our behaviours, renewing our minds, cleansing our hearts, all through the ability provided by the Holy Spirit whom Jesus asked the Father to send to us here on earth.  What for if there is nothing left to do?

Our view of the goal of a believer needs to change.  Currently, we are destined for heaven somewhere out in the sky.  We have no idea why, except that God desires to put us there so we can live in comfort and glory forever with Him. The Bible teaches that we are in a fight to enter the promised land and God’s rest.  Where is this land?  Within us.  In our hearts and minds.

We need to change how we think of how the kingdom of God will come to the earth.  Currently, there seems to be a lot of confusion about this matter.  Some religious teachers think we have to do this while we are in a faulty and defeated state as  believers.   We have to get out there and somehow take over our governments, and leadership positions in the natural world.  Jesus says in the scripture that his kingdom is not of this world.  The Bible teaches  that this whole world is going to be destroyed and God will be making a new heaven and earth.  Some religious teachers say that we just sit back and wait for God.  We do what we want, now that we have received Christ, and just believe that all is going to be ok.  There are other beliefs embedded in our religious theology and teaching about the kingdom of God as well.  Jesus says that the kingdom of  God is within us.  This is who and what we conquer first, ourselves, and our old nature.

It becomes more necessary that we read the  scriptures for ourselves understanding that we may need to change our thinking as we come to realize and understand some of what is taught there.  It  becomes more precarious to just attend a church and follow what is being taught there about the kingdom of God.  Jesus says we do not need to have someone to teach us, but that the Holy Spirit will teach us what we need to do and to know about God.  At some point in God’s timing we are going to know as we are known.   We need to understand that human teachers are fallible and perhaps incorrect.  We need to be critical of teachers and religious leaders in our day.  There seems to be much error that is detrimental to truth and to believers.  It is the ‘Truth’ that sets us free to be all that we are intended to be for God.